


nobody knows the me that you do

by requiemzoe



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Eventual Smut, F/F, Recreational Drug Use, Skipping Class, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, bottom cher! if ur into that, texting buddies, toni is a druggie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2019-09-17 07:10:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16970094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/requiemzoe/pseuds/requiemzoe
Summary: toni topaz is desperate for someone to talk to, and that someone comes in the form of cheryl blossom.





	1. nobody knows the me that you do

the sound of the sharpie squeaking on the bathroom stall echoes in the empty bathroom as toni inks her number onto it. " _going through some shit. who else going through some shit? text me. 555-1029._ "

it's desperate, and lame,  yes. however, as toni places the little bar shaped pill on her tongue ands swallows it roughly with tap water, she doesn't regret it one bit. someone to talk to is the thing she needs the most right now. sweet pea and fangs are almost always either off on serpent business, or hanging out with girls, or doing some other important task. she even wrote the letters in reverse so that the handwriting wouldn't match hers, so it's fine. no one will notice, she reassures herself. she gives the drugs another 2 minutes to kick in before leaving the bathroom quickly, not wanting anyone to even think that it could be her.

the fear is less than justified, honestly- toni topaz isn't exactly the most popular person in school. before she can sink herself into her little pool of self pity, she feels the effect of the painkiller massaging the back of her brain and bringing her into the state she wants to be in. blissfully unaware. as she leaves the bathroom, a flash of red hair flies by her quickly. she vaguely recognizes it as maybe cheryl blossom before her attention is caught by the bell ringing. 

-

her phone pings a few times throughout the day, but she doesn't stop to check it. she sleeps for the next two periods, lets sweet pea feed her apple slices at lunch, and maintains some facade of sobriety throughout the last three classes she has. during the last period, she distracts herself by letting her eyes wander around the room, rating her classmates inside her head. betty cooper, she decides, is a solid 7. veronica lodge is an 8.5, and she's pondering cheryl blossom when she gets called on.

"mrs. topaz, perhaps. you have some valuable insight. what is the overarching theme of the odyssey?" mr. duller inquires, his mustache wiggling as he talks.

the odyssey. fuck, since when were they reading the odyssey? 

"hospitality?" she guesses, glancing down at her book and recognizing the scene in front of her. "yeah, hospitality. when the king lets odysseus stay with him for a night. it's like, brotherhood. cam- camrader..."

"camaraderie." a voice pipes up from next to her, and it's none other than cheryl blossom. " mutual trust between friends."

mr. duller nods slowly, considering the answer. "what else, would you say, is an overarching theme of the odyssey as well, mrs. blossom?"

toni turns slightly to look at the girl as she contemplates her next words. her tongue traces her top lip, then the bottom one, biting down on it thoughtfully with sharp, white teeth. toni is about to get lost in thoughts of how those teeth would feel scraping against her neck when cheryl speaks again. "revenge." she purrs. the teacher is clarifying what cheryl means, but toni can't even hear him anymore, just looking over the profile of the redhead's face. how did she never notice how pretty cheryl was?

mercifully, the bell rings ten minutes later, and as she's walking out of the classroom, toni swears that she can feel cheryl brush all of her fingers against toni's arm lightly. 

-

it hasn't started snowing yet in riverdale, but the frosty wind bites at toni's cheeks anyways as she stalks to her motorcycle. when she gets on, it occurs to her that she doesn't have a place to stay for the night- sweet pea has a date, and fangs has the graveyard shift at the mechanic he works on. her eyebrows furrow and she pulls her phone from her back pocket, quickly unlocking it to text jughead. as she opens it, though,  one message out of the twelve that she received catches her  eye. " _I'm, as you put it, going through some shit. Wanna talk?"_

the correct grammar and punctuation throws her for a loop- this definitely isn't anyone she knows. she wills her freezing thumbs to type out a reply. _"absolutely. whats up?"_ the typing bubble pops up almost immediately, and she nibbles on a dry lip waiting for a response. _"My mother has turned to sex work, and is trying to throw me out of the house because she found a vogue magazine on my bedside table."_

 _"hang on a sec"_ toni types, confused but not willing to stay out in the cold any longer. she mounts her bike and practically speeds to pop's diner, ordering the tallest mug of hot chocolate she can get. as she sits on the tall vinyl stool, she looks around to see what other riverdale high students came here afterschool. there's the jrotc, laughing and shoving down fries like animals. two river vixens she vaguely recognizes converse over milkshakes- toni shudders at the thought of drinking something so cold while sitting by the window- and she thinks she can see a flash of red hair.

her heart jumps at the possibility of it being cheryl blossom, but as the head turns, she thinks it might be archie andrews. pop slides her mug across the counter as she's pondering, and it reminds her to text back the random number. _"sorry, i had to run to pop's to grab a hot chocolate. so fuckign cold."_ she cringes at her own typos as the message sends- almost instantaneously- before typing out another one. _"why does your mom wanna kick u out over a magazine?"_

_"You're at Pop's right now?"_

_"There was a two page lingerie spread in the middle of it, so she opened right up to it. I guess it made her think that I was looking at it previously, which just proves to her delusional mind that I'm some kind of raging lesbian."_  

interesting. as she takes another few big gulps of her hot chocolate. she relishes in the way it burns her tongue and throat. the heat gives her newfound confidence, and an itch to do something impulsive. toni bites her chapped lip again, typing out something risky. _"well. are u?"_ and then a sympathetic, _"she shouldn't rly be judging if she's doing sex work i think"_. she decides to ignore the pop's inquiry, not wanting to give herself away in case this mystery texter has malicious intents.

" _To be honest with you? I'm not even sure anymore. Hopefully, this little friendship will help clear some things up for me. Good thing you don't know who I am."_

_"hey u don't know that. i could b sitting behind u right ... now."_

a noise from the vinyl booth behind her makes her jump, which makes her realize its time for another high. she rifles through her jansport, pushing aside composition books and scrap pieces of paper that are all doodled on to find her wallet. she slaps a five down on the counter, chugging down what's left of her hot chocolate before leaving.


	2. gonna take some getting used to

that night, as toni flops down on jughead's spare mattress, all she can think about is texting the mystery girl. she momentarily forgets about getting the high that she so desperately needs as she turns over on her stomach and pulls out her phone, kicking her legs up childishly. " _hows the cold treating u?_ " she types, looking for anything to start a conversation. 

the typing bubbles take a while to pop up this time, and in the silence, she lets herself look around jughead's spare room. the large window next to the twin sized mattress allowed golden rays of sunshine to filter into the room, giving everything inside a yellow tint. there's not much furniture inside- toni's taped up a few polaroid pictures of sweet pea, fangs, jughead and her to fill the empty white wall next to the bed. other than that, the room is empty and stark. she's watching the blades of the cheap fan spin when her phone buzzes.

_"Terribly. I'm catching a cold. My after school activity (which I won't reveal to you for identity purposes) ends in the evening, so I have to walk all the way across the parking lot in November Riverdale weather to my car."_

toni smiles, cracking her knuckles as she reads the text over and over. 

_"ends in the evening, huh? sports?"_

_"None of your business. I'm not in the interest of telling you who I am anytime soon."_

_"implying that you'll tell me eventually ;)"_

_"Eventually."_ a long typing bubble, popping up and disappearing multiple times. in the delay, toni considers grabbing a spare quilt from the closet to cover up with. _"So, how old are you?"_

_"whoa, isn't that 2 revealing for u?"_

_"Just tell me so I know if I'm talking to a freshie or something."_

toni snorts despite herself. _"junior"_ she types quickly before shutting the phone off and tucking it under the lone pillow sitting on the mattress. she quickly unzips the smaller pocket on her bookbag, pulling out a small baggie with a tissue inside. her fingers fiddle with the tissue, shaking slightly as she finally gets to the two sedative pills inside. she smiles despite herself. "overkill, fangs." she says quietly before shoving the bag and the tissue in her pocket and swallowing the two pills dry. 

quickly, she opens the light, cheap door and tiptoes down the cold linoleum floor of the hallway to open the closet where jughead keeps the spare blankets. she picks out a thin quilt, skipping back across the floor to bring it back to the spare bedroom. "toni?" she hears jughead yell from the kitchen. "yes?" her mind quickly races a hundred different places- his tone sounded tense, he's probably going to take back the spare bedroom and kick her out, leave her without a place to stay- and she feels nausea rush over her.

"do you want a bowl of cereal?"

she huffs, relieved. of course. "no thanks, im gonna go to bed."

"but it's still light outside." he shouts, confused.

"long day." she shouts back, and hears him laugh, signaling the end of the conversation. just in time, she thinks as she feels her face start tingling. she wraps the blanket around her small frame, laying down on the spare mattress and curling up into a tight ball. the notification on her phone screen tells her she has four new messages, which she opens quickly.

_"So we have that in common."_

_"Other things that I can think of that we have in common:_

_-The cold is beating our asses._

_-Going through a lot."_

_"Why don't you tell me what's going on with you so I can add to the list? I don't even know if you're a boy or a girl."_

  _"girl"_ toni types before setting the phone down again and shutting her eyes tight. these have to be a stronger dosage, because fuck, she feels like the room is spinning.

her phone vibrates again soon after though, and she feels obligated to check it.

_"Your responses are suddenly very curt. Is everything alright?"_

toni's first instinct is to lie and say yes. however, as she's typing out a random excuse, she finds herself realizing that there's no reason to lie to this girl. she doesn't know anything about toni, or even who she is. _"my friend might've given me some bad pills i think. ??i can't tell nadthe room is spinningn"_

she wants to type something more, but her eyelids are getting increasingly heavy. before she realizes it, she's asleep, wrapped in a thin grey blanket and the golden light of the sunset.

-

at four am, toni wakes up, and time feels like a thick jelly. the first thing she notices is that she fell asleep with her shoes on. as she moves sluggishly to grab her phone to check the time, she notices the overload of messages that she has, all from the unknown number. the thought makes her feel fuzzy inside, and she smiles. all her bones crack as she moves to get up from the bed, untangling herself from the mess of blanket around her. hair sticks to her face at odd angles and she peels it off, disgusted and sweaty. 

as soon as she's sitting up, she feels better. the cold air from the night seeps through the window, making the walls of the trailer colder than ever and causing toni to shiver. she runs her hands through her hair a few times and glances around the room, eyes landing on her bookbag filled with homework that's due today. she contemplates rushing it all now while she feels good, but decides that she can let the assignments slip. her grades are all a's and b's right now, so theres nothing to worry about, she reassures herself.

her phone vibrates again, as if on cue, and she quickly grabs it and scans all the messages that she's received. 

_"Shirt. I hope you're staying hydrated to flush all that shit out of your system."_

_"Fuck. I meant shit. You see how worried you have me? Making typos and shirt."_

_"Shit."_

_"Are you okay?"_

_"Answer, please."_

_"I know I've only known you for a couple hours but I really really hope you're okay."_

and one from ten minutes ago-

_"I can't sleep. Answer me, I have a question."_

_"so demanding"_

_"You're okay! Thank god!"_

_"Okay, now tell me what to put as your contact name. You're my only text message conversation that doesn't have one and its bothering me."_

toni laughs out loud at that, genuinely cackling into her palm. "you made me ugly laugh, thanks."

_"Ugly Laugher it is!"_

_"no!!!!!!!!! nonononononoonononon put it as uhhhhh-"_  she stops typing for a second, genuinely thinking hard for a good name to disguise herself with. she quickly flips through a few traits about queen marie antoinette, her namesake, but decides it would be too obvious. as she's nibbling on her lip, her eyes land on her book bag, which contains her english literature book. english, last period, the odyssey-

_"put it as athena"_

_"Like, Athena from the Odyssey? Someone's been paying attention in Mr. Dullard's class."_

_"he fucking wishes lol"_ she snorts, laughing at how wrong this girl is. _"what should i put urs as? penelope?"_

 _"Fuck no."_ toni frowns. _"why the intense opposition ?"_

_"I'll tell you one day. You can put mine as Odysseus."_

_"the main character? the one that athena is constantly aiding?"_

_"Well, I'm hoping this friendship will be aiding. Maybe even something more."_

toni's cheeks heat up as she reads the message over and over again. _"more than friends? more than aiding?"_

_"For me to know and you to find out, Athena. I'm falling asleep, and I have Dullard tomorrow. I don't know what I'll do if he catches me sleeping and makes me stand up in front of the class and sing, like he made Reggie do."_

toni laughs at the memory. _"you heard ab that? that was in my class lmao"_

it truly was a sight to see. reggie had stood up there stiffly, painfully dragging the class through the most monotone rendition of twinkle, twinkle, little star any of them had ever heard as everyone stifled laughter. when he'd finished, mr. dullard had made him do it _again_ \- with matching hand motions.

_"You could say that. Goodnight, Athena."_

_"goodnight odysseus :)"_ toni types quickly, nails tapping against the screen eagerly. she can barely hide her grin as she shuts her phone off and moves to grab her bookbag, suddenly feeling very motivated to do her english homework.


	3. you’re all in my head

when toni wakes up again, it's 10:03. at first, she tugs the blanket tighter around her, before it registers in her mind how bright the room is. panicked, she jumps up quickly and starts gathering some semblance of an outfit from the clothes that she keeps under the bed. "two fucking hours late," she mumbles to herself angrily as she tugs on a pair of overly tight jeans and clips on her wallet chain the wrong way about four times. "jug!" she shouts, and it echoes through the trailer before she hears a slurred. "what?" and then a couple of loud thumps. "we're late!" he yells, streaking past toni's open doorway to get to the bathroom, a blur of black boxers and messy hair. she chuckles, pinching the bridge of her nose and washing her face in the kitchen.

her hair is knotted and slightly greasy from not being washed in 2 days, so she pulls it up into the world's messiest bun before brushing her teeth in the bathroom with jughead. they exchange panicked looks and eventually start laughing at how ridiculous they look. 

there's a message notification on her phone, a simple _"Have a good day."_ from her new texting buddy. she smiles at it, about to reply when jug walks out with a "if you're not in the car in two seconds, you're staying home."

-

school feels like 7 years instead of 7 hours. toni is never completely sober during school, so the change is drastic and incredibly noticeable. everything is so loud, and she's so aware, but she won't have anything to get high off of until tomorrow. her skin practically itches the whole day as she drags herself from period to period, sipping water every few minutes to distract herself. finally, _finally,_ it gets to seventh period. she has her headphones on full blast as she walks in the classroom, only taking them off when the bell rings. 

her phone buzzes roughly inside her pocket, making a loud noise against the plastic of the chair. practically half the class turns to look at her, and she can feel her cheeks burning a bright, bright red. "mrs. topaz." mr. dullard starts, standing up from his chair to stalk down the aisles of desks before he gets to toni's. "did you read the syllabus? no phones in class. I'll have to confiscate that." 

she's more mad about the embarrassment than anything, practically shoving the phone into his hand. he turns the device over to see the tarot card for love tucked into the clear case,  huffs disapprovingly, and starts to head back to his desk. "when will I get it back?" toni inquires loudly, her intense annoyance giving her newfound confidence. he turns slowly, and she can practically feel the entire class's eyes turning to look at her, all of her previous bravado fizzling away into nothing.

"after school." he says, pronouncing every single letter in the word. she huffs, annoyed, running her hands through her hair and finally looking her fellow classmates in the eyes. one by one, they all turn around and away from her. she still feels one pair of eyes burning into her side, and she turns to face whoever it is, and is met with cheryl blossom. she's looking at toni strangely, ike she knows something that toni doesn't, and it pisses her off. she narrows her eyes at her, turning back to her book and spacing out for the rest of the class.

cheryl doesn’t stop looking though- toni can feel her stealing glances for the rest of their time in class. 

“what the hell is your problem?” toni hisses at her as the bell rings, glaring harshly and watching as cheryl’s face falls. “um.” she says gracefully, and it makes toni nervous that she’s stuttering. 

because cheryl blossom doesn’t stutter, no matter how off guard you catch her. which leads toni to believe that she’s doing something really bad, or thinking about doing something really bad. 

“i don’t know what you’re talking about.” cheryl seems to decide on saying, shoving her book into her bag and swinging it over her shoulder. 

she’s out of the room before toni can process what happened. “phone, mrs. topaz,” mr dullard monotones, not looking up from his book as he waves the device in her direction. she mumbles a thank you and has to restrain herself from yanking it from his hands. 

-

as she’s making her way out of school, she feels someone shove something into the pocket of her backpack and zip it shut roughly. she jumps, all the muscles in her body tensing before she realizes that it’s only sweet pea. “what’s that?” she inquired, jerking her head back in the direction of her book bag. 

“exactly what you need.” he smiles, blowing her a kiss and shoving his way through the rest of the crowd to get to the doors. whatever it is, it didn’t make her bookbag much heavier, so she decides to go to the bathroom to investigate. the closest bathroom is the one inside the gym, so she decides to just go in that one and lock herself in a stall quickly. inside is none other than cheryl blossom and two of her other vixen minions, who are already dressed and fixing their makeup in the bathroom mirror. cheryl, though- she’s half naked, clad in her outfit from today from the waist down. her heels make her even taller, and far more intimidating than the wide eyed, staring girl toni just saw in class. 

cheryl’s got abs, her stomach is so toned and pale and toni finds herself wanting to put her mouth all over it. her porcelain skin stretches over her collarbones beautifully, a gold necklace delicately adorning the area between cheryl’s breasts. and god, her chest. she looks like a marble statue. the two vixens don’t even bother to look at toni, just carry on chattering as cheryl glares back at toni.

before she can open her mouth to say some biting remark about how bad toni looks today, toni shuffles over to a stall, locks herself inside and unzips her bookbag gingerly. inside is a tupperware, clear with a green lid that has “For Tiny <3” written on it in sharpie scrawl. toni’s eyebrows furrow, turning the little bowl over to find that something rainbow colored is tucked inside, sealed in a ziplock. unable to contain her curiosity, she pops open the lid and the ziploc. the smell hits her right away.upon further inspection, she realizes exactly what it is. an edible, a cereal bar held together with marshmallow fluff that has cannabis oil melted in. 

she smiles. he made it with fruity pebbles, her favorite. “it smells weird in here.” she hears a female voice say, and she jumps before sealing the ziploc quickly and popping the lid back onto the tupperware. still grinning, she tucks the object safely into the bottom of her bag and runs her hand through her hair. she’s so happy that she won’t have to be sober tonight (what a sad little thing to find hope in, she thinks.) that she doesn’t even glance at the three other girls in the bathroom as she leaves. 

- 

she practically speeds back to jug’s trailer, feeling the wheels of her motorcycle skid slightly on the ice of the road but not being able to bring herself to care. her phone buzzes once or twice, too, but she decides she’ll check it later. she lets herself in with the spare key, immediately heading to her bedroom. she shoves down a quarter of the cereal bar, finding herself to be actually pretty hungry, and flops on the bed as she unlocks her phone.  

there’s two unread messages, but they’re both from fangs, stupid pictures of his new platform boots. she types out a halfhearted response and opens odysseus’s messages, but it just makes her remember english class today. cheryl’s eyes burning into her shoulder as she got yelled at by dullard, cheryl licking her lips as she stuttered, cheryl in the bathroom, shirtless and on display for toni’s hungry eyes. cheryl, cheryl, cheryl. she feels a familiar ache between her legs, and decides to relieve herself since the edible won’t kick in for a while anyways.

she unzips her jeans and pushes them down to her thighs roughly, rubbing down on her clit forcefully. she shudders as she repeats the movement over and over, barely bothering to take off her panties. 

eventually, she takes them off, running her fingers through her soaked folds. god, she can practically feel how good cheryl’s long, delicate fingers would feel rubbing circles into her clit and slipping inside her. toni’s fingers find her clit, circling around it roughly at a bruising pace. she claps a hand over her mouth, moaning too loud to be reasonable, envisioning cheryl’s head between her legs and the way that she’d look with toni’s cum all over her mouth. the mental image makes her legs tremble slightly. 

she’s already embarrassingly close imagining cheryl’s long tongue slipping through her folds. her legs are really trembling now, and she finds herself bucking her hips up to meet her own movements. “fuck!” she grunts out, spreading her legs wider and thinking about wrapping her hand around cheryl’s neck and how pretty she’d look after sex, flushed and panting and satisfied. 

her orgasm sneaks up on her, hitting her like a freight train. she has to ball up her fist in the sheets to keep from screaming, instead letting a drawn-out, guttural moan rip free from her throat. she lays there for a minute, panting and sweaty and almost feeling guilty for doing that thinking of cheryl. she frowns, about to indulge herself into thinking about the morality of what she just did when the edible hits her like a fucking truck. the tops of her thighs go numb, and she smiles lazily as she draws patterns over her own stomach with her fingertips. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will pick up from where dis one left off


	4. think i’m getting through to you

_"So did you have a good day like I said to?"_

toni rolls her eyes endearingly. she reads the message over and over, noting the bossy tone and correct punctuation and she starts to think, maybe, that this mystery girl could be veronica lodge. it's incredibly unlikely, yes, but it's still plausible. she rolls the idea over in her head, her mind skipping to cheryl blossom as a suspect. she dismisses it quickly- this girl is way too nice to be cheryl- and she types out a reply. _"no"_ is her first response, but she quickly deletes it, paranoid. if she is texting veronica, or someone else in her english class, they'll know that it's her right away. she settles on _"yea it was ok. nothing eventful",_ which she decides is vague enough.

_"so what r u up 2"_

_"Your spelling literally makes me want to have a fucking stroke and drop dead."_

_"I'm currently driving home. I think I might stop by Pop's to grab dinner, which also serves the purpose of keeping me away from my insufferable mother for another hour or so."_

wow, okay. there's a lot to unpack there, and toni's sluggish brain struggles to comprehend it all.

_"what do u usually get from pops"_

_"and what the fuck is ur moms problem"_

_"Usually pancakes, no matter what. Occasionally a milkshake. You?"_

_"who the fuck always orders pancakes are u joking"_

_"What's wrong with pancakes?"_

_"well nothing but not for anytime u actual fucking psycho pancakes are a b4 noon food"_

she gets left on read for two minutes, the " **Read at 5:09** " glaring at her as she waits impatiently. she finds herself breaking off a few more pieces of her cereal bar, nearly choking on it when a picture message comes through. it's jarring, for sure, just because of the fact that this girl is so relentless about keeping her identity secret. the contents of the photo, unsurprisingly, reveal nothing about her identity, no matter how hard toni searches for clues. it's just taken from the perspective of someone sitting in a booth at pop's, a stack of pancakes plopped enticingly in the center of the table.

_"ok ngl those don't look 2 bad rn"_

_"Exactly."_

_"Can I ask u something?"_

_"is my spelling rubbing off on u?? u don't ever say u instead of You"_

_"Answer the question."_

_"ok yes u can ask me something"_

she hates when people ask for permission to ask her a question, but for some reason, she can't bring herself to be annoyed. 

_"Do you have any idea who I am?"_

toni frowns at her phone, puzzled. she tilts her head a little and thinks really hard about it, or as hard as she can while she's fucked up.

 _"gotta few suspects"_ she types, mumbling it as she types it. thats when she notices how high she really is, because she never says what she's typing as she's typing it.

_"Like who?"_

even though toni's brain isn't really functioning properly right now, she knows how incriminating it would be if she said her list of girls that she suspected to be her texting buddy, since they're all in her seventh period english class. she accidentally revealed that she was in that class during their last conversation, and she's not quite in the interest of giving away that piece of information again. _"because of identity purposes, no"_ she types, smiling. she likes having someone to talk to. it's been a while since she's had one.

_"Fair enough, I guess."_

_"Chuck Clayton and his gang of hormonal teenage boys just stumbled into Pop's incredibly wasted. Chuck looks like he's two steps away from vomiting and Pop is just staring at them angrily, it's so funny."_

toni does actually laugh a little at that mental image, as pop never really gets mad. _"sneak a pic"_

_"Too risky. I think I'm going to head out, actually, I'm not really in the interest of being here. All these boys have to offer are date rape and aids jokes, anyways."_

_"ur so right"_

_"riverdale high's prized athletes, ladies and gentlemen"_

about twenty minutes of radio silence from odysseus passes by, and for the majority of it toni just lays on her back and gets lost in her thoughts. she's reminiscing on how her pinky is incredibly shorter than the rest of her fingers when the sounds of jughead getting home bring her out of her daze. jughead, bless his heart, isn't exactly anti-drug, but toni knows that he won't be too happy if he finds her lying on the spare bed, stoned out of her mind. she tucks the edible safely into her bag, zipping it shut securely but silently and pretending to be asleep when he comes in to check on her. 

 _“you dodged my question about your mom earlier”_ she finds herself typing. the typing bubble pops up immediately.

_“My mother would kill me if she had the chance. Once, I heard my grandmother tell her that she should have drowned me and my sibling like a basket of kittens. And my mother agreed. Wholeheartedly. She’s an abusive piece of shit, so you could say my home life is... unsatisfactory.”_

toni reads it over and over again, feeling her stomach turn at this admission. “what the fuck?” she says out loud, her mind feeling a little clearer already.

_”oh my god, im so sorry. that’s honestly fucking terrible, what a witch.”_

_”Yeah, it’s whatever. I’ve gotten used to it, since I’ve been around it my whole life or whatever.”_

_”that’s not an excuse”_

_”What’s your thing? Your secret that you keep from everyone?”_

and as soon as toni reads it, she knows what her thing is. her thing is currently burning a hole in the bottom of her bookbag. her thing is making her eyes glassy and red right now. her thing made today, being sober, fucking miserable from here to the point where she never wanted to be sober again. 

yeah, she knows exactly what her thing is. she almost considers lying and saying she doesn’t have a thing, but figures that she has nothing to lose. the last bit of her sanity went out the window a while ago, landing among the cold, cold snow.

_”a raging drug addiction. i can’t go more than a week without having these really violent eithdrawals, liek foaming at the mouth and seizing up type shit. i let it get too bad and now i have no idea how to sto p and i don’t think i even want to stop.”_

typing is getting really hard, and the letters on her keyboard are all blurring together with the tears rapidly forming in her eyes.

she gets left on read for two minutes, but she honestly can’t even blame odysseus. toni would leave herself on read too.

_”That’s so fucking hard. You’re strong, considering the fact that you’re still here. I’m proud of you, for what it’s worth.”_

the _“for what it’s worth”_ part really gets her for some reason. something about this stranger’s validation makes her feel all fluffy inside, and she smiles widely. _“it means more than you think, odysseus.”_

_”I hope you’re who I suspect you to be. There’s only so many girls in our grade, and the one I have in mind is super cute. And, considering you’re stoned off your ass half the time that you talk to me, you’ve given me some pretty good clues.”_

_”maybe i deserve a clue :-(“_

in response, a gif of cher in clueless saying _“ugh, as if!”_ toni finds herself smiling fondly and she wraps herself up in her blanket, where she’ll lay texting odysseus for the rest of the night.


	5. a single sign from you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> super long chapter lol whoops

most days, when toni walks by the music room, she can hear twinkly, delicate piano music flowing from inside. it’s always cheryl blossom, sitting in the practice room every chance she gets, fingers dancing delicately over ivory keys. sometimes, she’ll mess up, and play the section over and over until her fingers seem to cramp.

once, toni was walking out of the school late from a study session, and she heard the distant music playing quietly, then a sour note. cheryl snapped, hitting the piano over and over again, causing dissonant sounds and ugly chords to come screaming out of it. then, a reprieve, and a quieter bang on the keys. the music resumed, perfectly, like nothing happened.

and today, after texting odysseus all day, she decides she’ll go by the practice room after school just to see what’s up. as soon as the last bell rings, she strolls out of the ap human geography classroom and stops by the vending machine to grab a pack of gum. popping it and blowing bubbles leisurely, she walks down the hallway that leads to the music room and grins when she hears the music.

it’s complex, and speeds up at times in long strings of connected notes and riffing that doesn't sound humanly possible. cheryl, she’s concluded, is not human.

taking a deep breath, she braces herself and walks into the room. cheryl jumps, eyes shooting to the clock quickly. “i still have this practice room for seven and a half more minutes.” she says, like a knee jerk reflex. toni raises her hands in a peaceful gesture, “yeah, i know. i just like to listen.” and when she’s met with silence, “i’m toni.” she immediately wants to smack herself in the face. why is she introducing herself?

“cheryl.” she says curtly.

“yeah. i mean, i know. so.”

cheryl’s eyebrow shoots up, “you know?”

“we have english together?”

“oh, yeah. so we do.”

a tense silence. cheryl is staring at her with that same look in her eyes, like she knows something toni doesn’t. the gears begin to turn in toni’s head. the clock ticks quietly. “so, you’re in here a lot.” toni says confidently, “before school, and lunch, and after.”

“yes. well, i’m very far from perfect on a very difficult piece. what’s your excuse?”

“i just like to listen.” toni repeats, grinning at her, and cheryl actually smiles a little. this is nothing like the cheryl blossom she’s presented when she walks by vixens practice, or when the redhead is talking in class. she seems shy, reserved, innocent almost.

cheryl clears her throat, while tucking her hair behind her ears and glancing at the clock. “seven... minutes.”

toni frowns a little, but mumbles “okay,” and turns to leave. she’s halfway out the door when cheryl calls “you give up _way_ too easily!”

“um, you’re kind of a confusing person.”

cheryl laughs, and toni’s stomach flips in about 8 different ways. she mumbles something to herself, something about “you should meet...” but she can’t quite catch the second part. “enjoy your seven minutes.” toni says genuinely, closing the door gingerly and waiting until she’s down the hall to break out in a huge grin and victory dance.

it’s not much, but it’s progress. progress!

cheryl plays a slide from one end of the piano to the other, before launching into her piece and nailing every note that toni can hear. knowing that cheryl is playing it because she knows she can hear- playing it for her- gives her butterflies.

-

math is a frustrating subject for toni.

last year, she’d been forced into taking pre-calculus by weatherbee, who claimed it would be good for her to challenge herself even though she was failing algebra two at the time. she passed, barely, and pre-calculus is harder than she could’ve ever imagined.

not only is the subject itself difficult, no one she knows is taking it. which, granted, she doesn’t know that many people, but the type of people in this class are the type of people she despises. ironed collars and sweater vests, cold eyes that look at her disdainfully. she can practically hear the “wrong side of the tracks” remarks from a mile away.

so she sits alone. it’s a small class, anyways, so they don’t really need the room.

“can anyone tell me what we need to do next?”

toni turns her attention back to her paper, messily scrawled on with cosines and such. she doesn’t really know what she’s doing, but she’s close to some sort of answer.

“antoinette?” and toni can hear the snickers at the mention of her full name. she stares at ms. goodman, with her expo poised on the whiteboard, eyes expectantly fixed on toni. luckily, this isn't the part of the problem where she stopped knowing what to do next.

“you take the square root of both sides of the equation.” she says confidently, her neck starting to itch, and she can’t even tell if it’s embarrassment or if it’s the fact that she’s sober. probably both.

“yes! square both sides, which gives you the information that we’re working in the second quadrant...” and toni ends up tuning it out, scribbling drawings of mockingbirds in her notebook. she’s done enough for one class, she decides.

her phone vibrates in the bottom of her backpack, and she finds herself dragging it onto her lap without even thinking about it. instinct. second nature.

_"We’ve been talking for four weeks and three days, and you still can’t tell me who you think I am?"_

toni smirks a little, biting the inside of her cheek to hide it.

_“you keep count ? u r SUCH a GIRL_

_aaaaand no”_

_“Did you forget that we’re both girls?”_

_“may b but i don’t keep track of how long i’ve been texting strangers”_

_“Well, maybe I’m developing a fondness for said stranger.”_

toni’s heart skips a beat.

_“oh really ?”_

_“Depends on how you feel about that.”_

_“i’d say i feel the same way”_

_“Are you sober?”_

_“uhh Yes_

_Why Do You Assume I Am Not_

_^that is a joke_

_but i am. one day and counting”_

_“Absolutely a joke._

_Just making sure that your mind is clear.”_

_“oh it is_

_painfully”_

a typing bubble for a minute, then two. then five. toni actually starts to pay attention to the lecture.ten minutes later, though, she decides to take matters into her own hands.

_“its weird liking u so much when i’m not sure if u are who i think u are.”_

her palms get a little sweaty as she types it.

_“Ditto.”_

-

“how’s everything, tiny?” fangs asks as he plops himself on fp’s worn leather couch. her attention is dragged away from the trashy, police focused reality show that's playing on the small tv.

“it’s been okay.” she mumbles. this whole being-sober thing is really taking a toll on her, and apparently it’s obvious. “has it really? are you clean?”

“squeaky.” toni says, glancing at him and laughing a little. he smiles. he never was happy to see her fall into the habit of using. “how does it feel?” he asks, sipping an off brand soda. fp always buys the off brand, saying that it tastes better. he refuses to admit that it’s because the serpents aren’t doing great financially.

“crystal clear. everything is louder. and brighter.”

he smiles dryly, and she can tell that her words aren’t making being sober sound any better for him. 

“i don’t think it’s for me. speaking of, do you wanna get high tomorrow? at lunch?” he pauses. "not too high. obviously."

“i have plans at lunch.”

“what other plans could you possibly have other than eating ramen noodles with me and sweets?”

“i have a life outside of you and sweet pea, yknow,” she says, smirking, “i’m meeting a girl.”

“whoa... who is it? is she interested?”

“i’m not sure yet, which is why i have no time to scarf down ramen noodles with you and pea in your beamer.”

“who is it?” he pushes further.

“cheryl.”

“blossom?!” he practically yells, and she shushes him violently. “are you fucking crazy? every other serpent who goes to our school is, like, in the next room.” she cards her fingers through her hair and sighs, “yes, cheryl blossom. i, um... i think i might be able to get her.”

“wow, those odds are terrible.”

toni suddenly gets very defensive, and she can’t figure out why. “and also, i might have been texting her about super personal shit for the past few months. so.” she spits, not mentioning how "might" was a very big part of that statement.

his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, but she doesn’t say anything. “be careful, tiny. northsiders are evil. remember what happened with sweet pea and josie?”

she really does. the memories of him stalking into the living room, crying silently, and grabbing a half empty bottle of vodka from under the couch are all too clear in her mind. he was a wreck for nearly two weeks.

“it’ll be okay.” she says, and she’s not sure if she’s trying to convince herself or fangs.

-

toni walks into the music room the next day with a cup of ramen noodles in hand that fangs wouldn’t let her leave without. it’s a little embarrassing, but she decides that if cheryl can’t deal with it, then she isn’t really the girl she’s been texting.

“i still have this practice room for-“ cheryl starts as soon as she walks into the room, but then relaxes when she realizes it’s toni. “oh. hello.”

“hey.”

there’s a pause, neither of them quite sure what to say. “how is the practicing going?” toni asks, stirring her noodles idly and leaning against the door.

“frustrating.” cheryl frowns, and her eyes drift to the door- more specifically, the windows around the door that would let anyone see the two of them inside. “why don’t you come sit?”

toni pretends she doesn’t know the reason why cheryl is asking, sitting on a chair in front of a cello next to the piano. "so," cheryl starts, “do you play any instruments?”

“i played bass guitar for two years at my old school," toni pauses. "but the jazz band wasn’t really their focus, they had bigger fish to fry. as you know.” cheryl nods solemnly. “like a gang war and a drug business?” she says dryly, poising her fingers on the keys and scanning through her sheet music.

“i’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”

“sorry. i just... you know. sensitive towards the whole subject of the past, and all the shit it brought me.”

“yeah.” toni says simply, trying not to smile at how good cheryl sounds when she curses.

they’re silent for a second, then cheryl starts her piece again as toni eats her noodles. she’s halfway through the cup when cheryl lands on a sour note. “fuck.” she mumbles to herself, starting over and getting agitated when she keeps hitting the wrong notes. she perseveres, though, and eventually gets through the whole piece perfectly twice. “my audition for yale is in three months.” she says, more to herself than toni, staring at the keys. toni nearly chokes on her food, “oh, shit. yale? that’s crazy.”

“pretty crazy.” a beat passes. "pretty fucking crazy."

they laugh a little. “i can’t wait. i want to get so far away from here.” cheryl pauses. “this piece is the last thing i need to perfect.”

“play it again.” toni says quietly, not really expecting cheryl to obey. she does, though, playing the fast part over and over. “that’s the part i’m having trouble with,” she says over the quiet music. “the fast parts and keeping the tempo straight. and... fucking hitting the piano when i can’t play it right.” toni laughs loudly, and it echoes through the room.

they talk for the next hour. toni learns that cheryl is classically trained, and has taken piano lessons since she was seven. cheryl learns that toni hates classical. “it’s so rigid, and structured. it’s stiff! there’s no room for, like, improvisation.”

“it’s comforting.” cheryl says genuinely. “with jazz, you’re just... making shit up.”

“exactly! it’s great! it’s _fun._ ”

“classical is fun," and cheryl frowns at toni's doubtful look, "if you're improvising, how do you ever know if you’ve got it right?”

toni shrugs. “it sounds good. it feels good.”

they look at each other for a second, just staring. “i’m really comfortable with you, and i don’t know why.” toni confesses, then immediately regrets it as soon as the words are out of her mouth. she half expects cheryl to rip her apart.

“i think i know why.” cheryl says, smiling and glancing out the door before scooting to the end of her bench to be closer to toni. toni’s tongue suddenly feels heavy and awkward in her mouth, and she wants to say something but doesn’t know what, so she watches as cheryl writes her number neatly on the corner of her sheet music before ripping it off. “don’t worry. i have twelve copies.” she tucks the little paper into toni’s hand securely. “text me afterschool. but make sure you wait until afterschool, okay?” 

“yes.” is toni’s intelligent response.

the lunch bell rings, and cheryl is out of the room before toni can even register what happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the song cheryl is playing is everything else from the next to normal soundtrack, to give u a mental image https://youtu.be/EmWaz_8bGhA
> 
> and when toni is leaving the practice room, cheryl says "you should meet my mother." ;;)))))


	6. we think too much

 toni is practically vibrating for the next two periods of the day. 

she lets her hair down so she can put her headphones on without getting her phone confiscated and listens to music for the last three hours of school, completing her work first in every class and then putting her head down to think about cheryl. at the moment, she's in chemistry. her next class is english, with dullard, and she's not quite sure how she's gonna make it when her brain is completely occupied with thoughts of a certain redhead.

cheryl's fingers, dancing across the keys of the piano. cheryl's laugh, cheryl's profane language, cheryl's phone number burning a hole in the pocket of her jeans. eventually, she can't take it anymore. she pulls out the slip of paper- the one that she tore off of her sheet music, toni smiles at the thought- and goes to compose a new message. honestly, she doesn't even care if she comes off as clingy. 

she types in the number and taps on the typing bar, but the contact name quickly changes from "555-1825" to "odysseus <3". just like she’d hoped.

her heart skips a beat, and she has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. _"cheryl?"_

_"Yes. Dumbass."_

_"hey hey HEY i totally knew !! i knew a few nights ago when i read through our conversation"_

_"Okay, and I knew in the beginning of November. It's almost Christmas. You give yourself away when you're high!"_

toni frowns, suddenly feeling like this whole thing has been tilted against her the whole time. _"that's not fair cheryl i told u all kinds of personal shit without knowing who u were"_

_"Yes. I could've ruined your life with that shit, but I didn't. Just like you could've gone around telling everyone my mother is abusive when you realized that you were texting me. You didn't, though. You kept it a secret, just like I did."_

_"Call it camaraderie."_

 toni pauses. cheryl has a point- no one was forcing her to get excessively high over the last few months. and cheryl did keep her secrets. she settles for _"hey siri set a reminder for me to stop getting high because i spill all types of personal shit apparently"_

_"And also, it's terrible for you. I'd never fuck with my brain like that."_

_"jfc u curse so Much"_

_"wouldn't have expected it out of u"_

_"ive heard you say fuck more times than ive heard you say your own Name"_

she waits for a response for exactly three minutes- she stares at the clock and watches the seconds tick by and tries to sync it up with the bouncing of her leg, but that just gives her a cramp. 

_"r u practicing after school"_

_"I'm always practicing after school. If it's not Vixens, it's piano."_

in the desk next to her, sweet pea has been asleep for nearly 30 minutes. a deep snore rumbles out of him, and the people around them laugh accordingly. their chemistry teacher, mr. heron, doesn't notice or doesn't care. he continues to scribble on the board in green expo, droning about scientific notation that toni already understands.

_"lame"_

_"skip with me"_

_"Funny! I love a girl with a sense of humor!"_

_"cheryl come ON i am miserable here i miss ur company"_

_"plsplsplsplspls its just one day of practice and missing dullard's class"_

_"u need a break anyway ive seen u consume ungodly amounts of coffee"_

_"To be honest with you? It's not even coffee sometimes. It's redbull."_

_"whOAAA"_

_"I DIDNT PIN U AS THE TYPE"_

_"this is crazy. THE cheryl bombshell putting that shit in her body"_

_"thought u would never fuck w ur brain like that"_

_"Hey! I am under stress! I need to rock this recital so I can get into Yale and get away from my mother, who has turned our house into her own sexual playpen."_

_"So yes, if redbull takes the edge off of that, I'll gladly let it fuck with my brain like that."_

_"Fuck it. Let's skip. This period ends in 12 minutes, I'll meet you in the back of the school?"_

toni doesn't even bother biting her cheek to hide her smile this time. she drops her head to let her hair cover her face because she's practically cheesing, her mind racing with the possibilities of what could come out of skipping with cheryl. her smile drops a little, though, when she realizes that she got a ride to school with jughead and archie andrews today, and cheryl definitely won't be okay with taking her bike.

 _"r we going in ur car or my bike?"_ she types anyways, internally wincing at what will definitely come out of this inquiry.

_"My car, what the hell? There's no way I'm getting on that metal death trap."_

_"It's parked down the street, so we'll have to walk. That's okay?"_

_"completely"_

_"see u in 10 :,)"_

_"9 actually"_

_"See you in 9, Toni."_

_-_

"hey." cheryl says simply as soon as toni walks out of the double doors. as it closes, the loud noises of students going to class is effectively shut in the building, and it's suddenly dead silent in the alley. she pulls her jacket a little tighter around her, even though her skin feels like it’s on fire with the effort of being sober for the first time in weeks and being with cheryl.

"hey." toni grins, running her fingers through her hair. "do you happen to have an extra red bull on you? the adrenaline of the big reveal has pretty much worn off, and i'm crashing."

cheryl mirrors her actions, smiling and tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "yes, there's an extra under my seat."

"very secretive," toni notes as she starts walking. cheryl follows behind, sighing, "if my mother catches me drinking it, she'll behead me, no doubt. she can't stand the thought of me doing anything to alter my state of mind."

toni nods silently, not quite sure what to say to that. "she sounds like a nightmare."

"doesn't she?" cheryl pauses, cracking her knuckles as she seems to think about what to say next. this girl is full of bad habits, it seems, every new one more alarming to toni than the last. this is nothing like the public persona of cheryl bombshell that she's been presented over the past year, no, this is someone different. "when we were texting... i was paranoid that you might find me out and screenshot everything and use it against me. i have a lot to lose."

"no, cher, i would never do that to you."

"yes, i know that now." and the hopeful lilt in her voice makes toni's heart sing. they reach the end of the alley, and toni quickly jerks cheryl back by the sleeve of her jacket as she turns the corner and seems to just stroll out onto the street- directly towards the school's entrance, where a security guard is positioned. "where are you going? the school is, like, right there!" she hisses, but quickly regrets it when she sees the redhead’s face fall a little. the realization dawns on her that the girl has probably never done this before, and doesn't know any better. she makes a mental note of this and reminds herself not to yell at cheryl ever again.

"my car..." cheryl starts, pointing towards the empty street across from the school and then looking around in the other direction. the red mustang looks like a dream, snow falling perfectly on its polished finish. "oh. i thought i parked it across the street from the school." she frowns, red lips settling into a pout as her tired eyes drift towards toni. "huh. i might need some of that redbull too." toni laughs a little, suddenly very aware of how close their faces are.

"whatever you need." toni tries to say, but it comes out as more of a mumble. she looks down at their feet out of instinct, giving her a perfect view of when cheryl's fingers- calluses from playing the piano forming on her thumb and index finger, toni observes- intertwine with hers. 

"this is okay?" cheryl practically whispers, looking up at toni. snow is falling onto her eyelashes and toni wants to kiss her more than she wants to breathe right now. 

"yeah. um, yeah, it's perfect." toni spits, internally smacking herself for the word vomit. the tip of cheryl’s nose is all red, and her cheeks are rosy. “you look really good today, cher,” she mumbles, and squeezes the hand that’s in hers. cheryl smiles, but there’s something behind it that toni can’t quite figure out. it scares her, because she wasn’t aware the girl was keeping anything from her other than the obvious. 

they get in the car as discreetly as possible, and toni quickly finds herself missing the feeling of holding hands with the girl sitting next to her, but two perfectly manicured hands are locked on the wheel. they pass by the main school building, and the security guard, who's tapping on his phone aimlessly.

“it doesn’t really matter anyways,” cheryl notes quietly, “he couldn’t have seen us. i have tinted windows.”

toni makes a mental note of that.

cheryl catches her thinking about that with what must be a strange expression on her face, because the girl lets out a laugh. “don’t get the wrong idea, tt.” she states simply, “not today. i’m not that type of girl.”

toni grins, because honestly, she wasn’t planning on trying anything yet. “perfect,” she says, and she means it. she’s learning that cheryl has a fondness for things that are perfect- piano practice and spotless vixens routines and the pristine state of her car. (aside from the four redbull cans rolling on the backseat floorboard). 

there’s a long silence in the car, and toni finds that this dynamic is a lot different than texting. she can’t think of anything to say, so she just spits, “how’s your...mom?” awkwardly. cheryl’s face contorts at the word.

”she’s not nearly as terrible as usual, but that’s only because she’s got a steady flow of cash coming in from lonely riverdale men.” cheryl mock gags, and toni chuckles. “yum! lonely riverdale men!” and now it’s cheryl’s turn to laugh, and soon the tense atmosphere melts away. it's just like the countless sleepless nights they've spent up together, exchanging secrets and jokes and talking about everything and nothing at the same time. 

”where are we going?” toni eventually inquires, staring out the window at the countless shops on main street. it still amazes her how _much_ there is on the northside- stores and people and _cars,_ so many cars. she's never even seen a motorcycle on the northside, other than hers.

”oh shit... you know what? i didn’t even think about that,” cheryl confesses, chewing on her bottom lip as toni pretends not to stare, “do you have somewhere we could go?” she pulls the car over into an empty hardware store parking lot so they can talk.

toni pauses. “m-my,” she starts, before realizing she was about to say ‘my house’ and catching herself. “jughead’s trailer is empty right now... and actually, it will be all night.” she rolls the idea over in her head a little longer. “yeah, jug is staying the night at betty’s, and fp went out of town a few days ago.”

cheryl tries to hide the look on her face, she really does, but she can’t. “look, i swear it’s not as bad as it sounds. i have my own room, we’ll be completely alone anyways, and it sounds a lot better than retreating back to your mother’s sex dun-“

”okay! okay. jughead’s it is.” cheryl states loudly, cutting toni off with a roll of her eyes. “too graphic for you, bombshell?” toni teases, laughing lightly. that earns her a smack in the arm, and it just makes her laugh louder. "i'm gonna fucking slap you," cheryl says through a chuckle as she opens up her maps app and types in 'sunnyside trailer park".

the rest of the car ride is uneventful, but when there's a lull in the conversation and cheryl actually knows where she's going, toni quickly finds that this whole "being sober" thing is taking a toll on her. the car is suddenly very bright, and the sound of the radio is too loud. it's only been four days, but she hasn't gone four days in a long time- weeks, actually, she realizes with a start.

"you're thinking too loud." the girl next to her states simply when they reach a red light.

"it's too bright in here," toni mumbles, trying to hide the whine in her voice but failing. she groans, shutting her eyes tightly and pushing her head back against the head rest. "fuck."

"are you okay?" cheryl asks, and toni internally smiles at how fucking cute she sounds when she's concerned. "okay, that was a stupid question. is it because you're sober?"

"yes, but i don't want to get high again..." toni grunts, opening her eyes to cheryl's concerned eyes fixed on hers, "this sucks." she concludes gracefully, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers.

"what are you gonna do?" cheryl asks quietly, turning her eyes back to the road as the light turns green. toni honestly has to think about it for a second, because as miserable as she is right now, she really, really doesn't want to be high in front of cheryl. which is ironic, she realizes, because she was messed up during half of their texting conversations.

"i don't want you to see me like that." she confesses quietly, "it was different, when we were texting and i thought you didn't know who i was, and i had no fucking clue who you were until, like, a week ago. it's not pretty. it's like... pathetic." the familiar heat of embarrassment creeps up her neck, burning her cheeks. hot tears creep up behind her eyelids. "it's only been four days-" she chokes out, and it scares how overwhelmed she is with emotions all of a sudden. she feels like she cant breathe. cheryl pulls over for a second time. 

they don't say anything for a second, cheryl simply grabs toni's hands over the center console and puts her forehead on toni's. "hey." she whispers, eyes closed.

toni laughs a little, two matching tears streaming down her cheeks at the same time. "hey."

"you're not pathetic," cheryl says, still practically whispering. somehow, this is more intense than any hookup toni has ever had. this is more intimate than anything that she's ever experienced. it shakes her to her core, but she's not scared. "when was the last time you were sober for more than two days?"

"like, the end of october. four days."

"and look at you now, tt. you're doing it again. i'm _proud_ of you, sincerely. and that's not gonna change if you need something to take the edge off when we get to jughead's. you're not defined by this. and i won't pretend that I know how hard it is, because i have no idea, but... i'm so proud of you for making it this far." and how _honest_ cheryl sounds just makes toni even more emotional because she can't even remember the last time she was this vulnerable with someone. 

the song on the radio finishes, and goes on to the next one. then the next. the time just keeps passing but toni is just breaking, the realization of how serious this problem of hers is keeps dawning on her. it keeps coming in waves, and she can't even bring herself to fight it anymore. cheryl doesn't even flinch, wrapping toni up in her arms and shushing her softly. "sorry," toni chokes out, pulling away from warm arms even though every part of her is screaming not to, "i'm, like, crying all over your jacket."

the redhead doesn't answer. she shushes her again, placing her hands on tear stained cheeks. toni reaches up, placing her fingers over cheryl's, and they just breathe together for a few moments. when she finally calms down and opens her eyes, cheryl's studying her face like she's looking for any sign of leftover distress.

"how are we feeling about that redbull?" cheryl croons, tilting her head a little.

a moment passes before toni confesses, "that's, like, the best thing i can think of right now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> id die for toni topaz no fucking CAP  
> also im not rly sure where i wanna take this story .. im thinking about having cheryl fall into drug use as well what with all the stress she's under, and toni trying to keep her from it? thoughts ?


	7. mozart was crazy

when they get to the trailer, cheryl is really, truly trying her best not to stare at this environment that she’s so clearly not used to. it makes toni want to smile from ear to ear that she’s even making an effort. she watches as cheryl slides off her boots at the door, she watches as cheryl trails her fingers along the thin walls of the hallway, and she watches as those same fingertips slide against the edges of the pictures taped to her wall. she pauses on one of her, sweet pea and fangs when they were twelve, deep in a tub of neopolitan ice cream.

“it’s charming,” she concludes sweetly as she turns on the bed to face toni, sitting with her knees against her chest and her arms around her legs. “yeah, i try,” toni scratches at her neck self consciously, “it gets, like, really fucking cold. because the walls are so thin.” it feels like cheryl is claiming her space, the way she’s touching and observing everything, and the thought of it makes toni’s stomach flip.

“well, you have me.” cheryl grins, and she looks genuinely happy. toni has never seen her look like this for anyone. “do you need to, like...” she trails off as she watches toni pick at her nail polish restlessly. she knows that ‘drown yourself in pills’ is the end of that sentence, but pushes that thought out of her mind.

“i do.” toni says, and her voice sounds so small that it scares her. there’s a beat, and toni reaches under the mattress and pulls out a small, black pencil pouch that rattles when it’s shaken. “whoa.” cheryl breathes when toni pulls it out, and reaches out to touch it. toni hands her the whole bag, and her perfectly manicured hands turn it over before opening the zipper and seeing all the orange bottles inside. “what is all this?” she asks, but toni doesn’t answer, figuring it’s rhetorical.

“risperdal,” she lists as she pulls the bottles out one by one, “xanax... valium,” she pauses, seeming to recognize the next one. “adderall.” and there’s something in her tone that toni can’t quite decipher. “where do you get all this?”

“it’s more common than you think,” toni states matter of factly, unlacing her boots to drop them on the floor. “riverdale is an old town, all the preppies and the jocks are raiding their parent’s medicine cabinets... popping xanax, snorting adderall...”

“really?” cheryl inquires, and toni pretends not to hear the curiosity in her tone. “yes, but that shit will kill you. like, actually.”

“very eloquent.”

“fuck you,” toni grumbles light heartedly as she picks up a bottle, shakes out a xanax and turns it over in her trembling fingers.

“why are you hesitating?”

“it’s stupid.”

cheryl leans across the pill bottles between them, “it’s probably not.”

“i, like...” she trails off, words dying in the space between her and cheryl. _i wanted to kiss you while i was sober_ , it’s lying on the tip of her tongue, but toni can’t find the words. this whole thing, her and cheryl, still doesn't feel quite real. she's scared the rug is going to get pulled out from under her feet, like it always does.

fuck it, she thinks impulsively before leaning in, stopping about an inch from cheryl’s face. the girl just stares at her, wistful but hesitant. “i don’t know if i can do this.” she whispers, minty breath hitting toni’s lips. “with my life, and everything...i’m, like, one fuck up away from disaster.” her actions contradict her words, though, as she leans forward to rest her hands on toni’s hips. “let me be perfect for you, then.” toni retorts, cupping cheryl’s face and waiting for her to close the distance.

she does, and their first kiss is shared over various pill bottles. toni feels like it might be symbolic of something. she can’t think straight with cheryl’s pillowy lips moving so addictingly against hers.

“wait, i have to pee.” she says unceremoniously, pulling away and smiling when cheryl whines, “are you fucking serious?! i’ve been waiting, like, two months!”

“patience is a virtue,” toni says as she picks up her pill and walks to the bathroom, swallowing it dry on the way there.

when she gets back, cheryl’s in the same place on the bed, fingers tapping on her knee as she stares off into the distance. it takes a few seconds for toni to realize that she’s running through the finger motions for her audition, and watches her for a few seconds. it’s beautiful, but it’s sad. she walks over to the girl, placing her hands on her wrists lightly. she’s jolted out of her trance, looking at toni with tired eyes.

cheryl is reaching for her face before she even sits down, capturing toni’s lips in a bruising kiss that’s a total change of pace from earlier. “cher-“ she manages to pull away and mutter against red lips.

cheryl pulls back, breathless and eyes half lidded. the sight is enough to make toni forget whatever she was going to say, so she just shakes her head and kisses her again. and again.

-

“what are you thinking about?” cheryl asks into the empty air, toni curled around her. they stopped making out once their lips started to tingle, cheryl insisting that the rumor mill would start up if she came to school with swollen lips.

toni shrugs. “you.” there’s a pause. “it’s pretty in here.” the golden light is streaming in through the window, blanketing everything in a sleepy haze. toni feels weightless and heavy at the same time, cheryl’s steady breathing keeping her grounded. “it’s beautiful, tt.” toni reaches for the girl’s hand, picking up her left one by a perfectly manicured finger. “you're getting calluses.” she says simply, letting it hang in the air.

“from practicing so much. has to be perfect.” cheryl mumbles, intertwining their fingers. “i’m nervous as fuck.”

“how come?”

“it’s _yale._ ”

“yeah, but you’re, like, never nervous. i’ve never seen you,” she pauses to yawn, “nervous.”

cheryl laughs dryly, and even in her state, toni can tell there’s no humor in it. “no one has.”

something occurs to toni, her brain slowly putting the words in order to convey what she wants.she tilts her head up, looking up at cheryl as cheryl looks down at her. “can i come?” she says semi-desperately, squeezing cheryl’s hand, “to your recital, i mean.”

cheryl just nods, wrapping her legs around the smaller girl’s waist. “okay.” she says on her way into toni’s lips, and they kiss briefly.

toni finds herself tumbling into the comfortable embrace of sleep tucked in cheryl’s arms and the hazy golden light.

-

when she wakes up, cheryl’s still knocked out. toni watches her for a little bit, eyes combing over her features. it’s strange to see her in toni’s space, kissing her and laying with her like she’s daydreamed about so many times. she presses a grateful kiss to a pale forehead before sitting up, bones cracking wildly. the sound wakes the redhead up. “you sound like a fucking bag of popcorn,” she snorts, still half asleep.

toni slaps her lightly in the arm, rubbing her eyes. “i’m alive.” she declares, her raspy, sleepy voice making an appearance. “oh my god,” cheryl groans, pushing her head back into the pillow, “your voice sounds so good like that.”

“does it?”

“jesus christ.”

toni laughs, kisses her, tangles her hands in red locks. “wanna watch a movie?” cheryl thinks about it for a minute, tracing her finger along toni’s lips, “i need more sleep.” she says it honestly, and her eye bags are suddenly very visible to toni in the evening light. “that’s okay.” toni assures her swiftly, settling back down on top of her. laying her head on cheryl’s chest, she can hear the gentle thump thump thumping of the girl’s heartbeat.

-

“do you wanna come over today?” cheryl blurts out of the blue on a random tuesday two weeks later. toni stiffens in her seat, fingers freezing in place on the frets of the bass guitar. she’d taken up playing again while cheryl practiced, eventually needed some other source of entertainment other than delicate piano music.

“to your house?”

“i mean, yes. if you want to. my mother won’t be home for all of tonight, she’s out...” cheryl’s voice dwindles the further she gets into the sentence, and she waves her hand like she’s fanning smoke away. “whatever. so, like, i have the house to myself.”

for the past two weeks, toni had been sneaking cheryl into jughead's spare room whenever she could. cheryl's house, though... that was uncharted territory. they'd never even talked about it. toni had honestly never even considered it. “are you sure?”

cheryl nods, tucking her hair behind her ears and looking at toni hopefully. a bad feeling, an apprehension about the whole thing settles in toni’s stomach heavily, but she can’t say no to how cheryl looks right now. she can’t say no to cheryl.

“sounds like fun.” toni decides reassuringly, and the grin that breaks out on cheryl’s face (all teeth and crinkled up eyes and practically radiating happiness) sends her hands flying into a bass solo for the ages. cheryl eventually picks up the melody too, and plays a light waltz to go along with toni’s deep, rumbling improvisation.

cheryl’s getting better at improvising too, although her first attempts were practically embarrassing. what with all her classical training, she’d accidentally slip into a sonata from mozart or beethoven without even realizing it. her habit of hitting the piano had lessened, which toni took as a small victory. what toni takes as a large victory is how cheryl looks right now- practically bouncing on the piano bench as her foot haphazardly steps on the petal and her hands glide from one end of the keys to the other effortlessly.

she makes her playing quieter, softly hitting the strings instead of plucking them harshly or slapping them with the side of her thumb. cheryl’s playing gets louder, like she’s reading toni’s mind, and she slides into a jazz piece that she seems to be making up on the spot.

toni practically glows with pride.

-

“holy shit.” toni mumbles as she steps into cheryl’s house. the decor is what toni can only describe as 18th century gothic, or victorian... something. all she knows is that it's fucking creepy how high the ceilings and staircases are, and the amount of taxidermic animal heads hung on the walls. they stare at her with beady eyes, seemingly warning her not to come in further.

"thornhill was impossibly bigger, but..."

"but you burned it down." toni finishes for her, turning to face the tall girl in front of her. somehow, she can't quite connect the cheryl that she knows- goofy, and playful, and innocent- to the cheryl that the general public is presented with- ruthless, and conniving, and an absolute arsonist who burnt her mansion down.

"and i'd do it again in a heartbeat." cheryl confirms, grabbing toni's hand and leading her up the staircase to what toni presumes is her bedroom. she's proven right when cheryl pushes open a heavy, wooden door to reveal the reddest room toni has ever seen. a four poster bed sits smack in the middle of it, with various other equally luxurious looking items scattered around. "this is fucking huge."  toni blurts out honestly, and cheryl laughs dryly behind her.

toni's boots thud heavily on the wooden floor as she walks around the room, observing curiously. hanging on the wall above cheryl's desk is a minimalistic calendar that reads "JANUARY" in block letters. days are crossed off in red pen, various due dates and events written in. for some reason, toni finds it ridiculously endearing that cheryl crosses the days off as they go. 

she picks up two of the pages, flipping to "MARCH". the 25th is circled once, twice, three times. "AUDITION: YALE ONLY HAS ROOM 4 A BASKETCASE IF SHE CAN PLAY" is scribbled in, taking up the whole box. toni chuckles a little, dropping the pages and turning to face cheryl, who's been watching her the whole time. "your room is beautiful," she says earnestly. something passes over cheryl's face when she says that, eyebrows raising a little with an emotion toni can't decipher,

"it doesn't feel like home, your room in jughead's trailer does." it makes toni's heart sink a little that cheryl can't say "your house". she really needs to figure out what to do about that.

cheryl's suddenly deep in thought, her face giving her away as she stares off into nothingness, biting the inside of her cheek. "what are you thinking about?" toni says kindly, stepping forward to intertwine their fingers.

"honestly, tt? i wanna ask you something really personal and probably intrusive."

"is it about why i don't have a house?" forcing herself to say the words makes toni feel sick. cheryl doesn't answer, doesn't even nod in the affirmative, plays with toni's fingers and waits for her to keep talking. "i don’t have parents. my dad, he, um... he left, when i was 7. dropped me off with fp and just disappeared. and my mom,” she pauses, not sure how to say what her mom did. she can feel the thought of it making her throat close up, like always. she settles for, “she went away when my dad was still around. so, i was stuck. my only legal guardian is god knows where. my uncle skipped town years ago. i used to live in his trailer, but it got robbed in august and it freaked me out so bad that i didn’t want to stay there anymore. so fp took me in..." she smiles a little, "like he always does."

cheryl listens intently, taking a moment to process all that information. “i’m sorry, tt.” she says quietly, and toni shrugs it off. “i’ll tell you what happened to my mom one day,” she looks up at cheryl, fidgeting with the hem of her flannel, “i’m just not sure if i can. not right now.”

”no rush.” cheryl soothes, tilting toni’s chin up so she can kiss her, “thank you for telling me that.”

toni doesn’t bother answering, just pulls cheryl toward by the collar of her perfectly ironed shirt that’s resting over her sweater, kissing her sweetly they walk backwards somewhat gracefully towards the bed, and as soon as toni’s back collides with it, they hear the front door open. the way that cheryl stiffens so quickly is startling. “fuck.” 

“fuck.” toni echoes, feeling her eyes widening. “my closet. go.” cheryl hisses, handing toni her bookbag and shooing her into the closet. toni watches through the slats of the door as cheryl situates herself at her desk, pulling a random copy of sheet music out of a drawer and taking out a highlighter, marking seemingly random measures. an expression of practiced ease makes its way over cheryl’s face, red hair falling around her features like a curtain.

“cheryl?” the sound of her mother’s voice makes toni’s blood run ice fucking cold, and she briefly wonders if cheryl felt the same sensation. if she did, she isn't showing it. "yes, mother?" she calls innocently. toni doesn't fail to notice the way cheryl digs her nails into her thigh as her mother's footsteps approach. the door opens, the heavy wooden fixture slamming against the doorframe. "what are you doing?"

"homework, mother. three more chapters of calculus, a physics problem set, a history quiz, and two pages on ship imagery in the odyssey, which is obvious."

her mother hums approvingly, and toni wills herself to stop trembling as she watches cheryl's mother cross the room and come to stand directly in front of the closet. "get it all done. perfection-"

"is an obligation. yes, mother."

"stay here. don't open the door for anyone. i'll be back sometime tomorrow."

cheryl nods, and toni can see her eyes flicker to the closet. her mother either doesn't notice, or doesn't care, because she simply leaves the house without a goodbye or an i love you. it's so cold. their interaction was sterile. even fp told toni that he loves her before one of them went out somewhere. she watches cheryl close her eyes and count to ten silently, before standing up and checking the hallway. "all clear," she declares triumphantly before swinging the closet door open as toni stands up.

a wave of relief washes over her, and she feels like she could cry. "jesus fucking christ. i don't think i've ever been that scared...ever."

cheryl looks like she shares the sentiment, practically giggling, "you're in a gang!" 

"okay, but that woman-!" she jabs an accusing finger at the door, gesturing vaguely towards where cheryl's mother was standing, "is the fucking antichrist! i've met less threatening mob bosses." she pulls her shirt a little tighter around her, trying to get her hands to stop shaking. "she just came to check up on you, or?"

"no, she probably forgot something and came to pick it up. she never comes to check on me."

that sentiment hangs in the air maybe a little longer than it should've, the heavy reality of it settling over the room. toni's eyes drift to cheryl's hands, watching her dig her nails into the palms of her hands. toni grabs them gently, running her thumbs over pale palms as she tries to think of something to say. "do you really have all that homework?"

 "yes, but i embellished it. it's only two chapters of calculus, the physics problems, my history quiz isn't until friday and dullard's paper isn't due for two weeks. which you knew, i hope."

"actually, i already did it." toni preens a little at the fact that she finished it early, "maybe you're a good influence on me." 

"jesus, i fucking hope so,"  and she can see the way that cheryl hesitates before she keeps talking, "you look really good today, tt." and she just looks so heartbreakingly nervous, it makes toni want to cry and reassure her all at the same time. 

"you look amazing today, cher." toni means every word of it, but she can see that cheryl's still shaking slightly, so she sits her down and straddles her lap and any trace of conversation is immediately forgotten.

-

surprisingly, cheryl ends up finishing all her work, even with their intermittent make out sessions that neither of them could stop initiating. she coerced toni into doing homework that she wasn't going to do- apparently, according to cheryl's standards, a calculus worksheet that had water spilled on it was still no excuse for an f- and proofread her paper for dullard. "we've been very productive." toni says triumphantly, smiling at cheryl from her place next to her on the bed. "this is, like, the best day i've had in a while."

cheryl chuckles, "that's so fucking depressing, because me too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the girls,... they r,,, Progressing


	8. may cause side effects

the day after, toni is walking down the hallway, weaving through various crowds of people, when she gets tugged into a corner by a pair of large hands. every muscle in her body tenses as she looks up to discover sweet pea looking very uncomfortable. “do you have anything i could sell?” he says borderline frantically, “i owe this guy some money and he wants me to have it today, by sundown.”

toni snorts nonchalantly, not really believing that he’s serious. she can’t remember the last time that sweet pea was on the receiving end of one of one of these types of deals. “since when do you let randos order you around, sweets? what’s he gonna do, come beat you up? i doubt i-“

“answer the fucking question, tiny, please.” and his eyes are wild, and it’s making her nervous. “sweets...” she reaches up, tucks a lock of greasy hair behind his ear. now that she’s looking at him, he looks even worse than he did before. “i have half a bottle of xanax at jug’s trailer. it’s in a pencil pouch under the spare room’s mattress. you can go get it or i could go, because you don’t look really good right n-“

he nods, effectively cutting her off. “i’m okay, i swear, i just... i’m freaked out right now. this guy, he, like... has people everywhere, i-“ his face tenses as he speaks, the kind of look that she knows so well. she’s seen him make this face many times over the years, like the time that he broke his arm when they were nine.

“it’ll be okay,” she soothes, shoving her hands in her pockets, “just pay him off and you’ll never have to interact with him again, right?”

he smiles a little, and she feels relieved at the sight. “yeah, i guess. i’m gonna go get that stuff right now, is that okay? 

“leave five for me.”

“you got it.” and he’s gone without a trace, disappearing into the crowd of people quickly. she’s still standing in the corner when cheryl arrives, leaning against the wall, not facing toni. for someone so quiet, the girl has a presence. toni can practically feel the shivers running up her spine when she speaks. “what did he want?”

toni smiles at the slight jealousy in her tone. “he just wanted something to sell. got wrapped up in bad business.”

“what did you give him? to...sell?” toni is so busy studying cheryl's profile discreetly that it takes her a second to register the question. her tone sounds inexperienced, like she’s not sure if she’s using the right words. toni thinks it’s kind of adorable.

“oh, this bottle of xanax that i’ve had for the longest.”

“don’t you need that?” 

“not lately,” toni shrugs. she takes a breath to say something more, but a throng of vixens, all clad in uniforms similar to cheryl’s, rounds the corner as soon as she opens her mouth. it’s clear just by studying the way that they walk, the way that they nonverbally claim the hallway as their own, that they think they’re better than everyone in this school.

toni’s mind flickers to when southside and riverdale high first integrated, random vixens (but somehow, never cheryl) attempting to corner her in the bathroom and interrogate her about rumors she had never heard before. _“zoe murphy says you fingered her when she didn’t want it.” “alana beck heard from evan that you and his girlfriend did it. in his car.”_ she winces internally. far from the worst times of her life, but traumatic nonetheless.

cheryl’s demeanor shifts almost immediately, her posture straightening as she pretends not to know toni- which stings, admittedly- and walks over to them, assuming her queen bee status easily. she throws an apologetic grimace towards toni when they’re not looking, and toni just smiles a little, shrugs in a way that she hopes is convincing. “and you were just talking about how you weren’t needing the pills anymore, huh?” she mumbles to herself as she steps into her precal class.

subconsciously, toni wonders why she feels the need to push down this specific complexity of her and cheryl’s... thing that they have together.

the period passes by with its usual uneventful dullness, but toni feels her skin start itching around the second half of the period as she struggles to finish her classwork. she twirls her hair around her finger as she does the page of problems, pencil scratching on paper angrily and maybe chewing her gum just a little bit too hard. the lead breaks once, twice, three times, and she feels like just snapping the fucking pencil in half. eventually, her agitated state (whether because of the reprieve, or because of cheryl, who could ever tell) gets to be too much for her to ignore.

she needs a fix, now. besides, it's been an entire six (!) days, so she lets herself believe that she deserves this. the days between highs have been getting longer and longer, and she's honestly pretty proud of herself for the progress. 

_“is there n e way u can drop off a xan for me right now? i can meet you out back"_

_“No problem T”_ is sweet pea’s speedy reply, and toni silently thanks gods that she doesn’t even believe in when she gets the “ _Here_ ” text and is granted the bathroom pass. she almost trips with how fast she runs down the stairs.

she sneaks out to the back, which isn’t hard because the hall monitors hardly even bother anymore. sweet pea drops the pill in her hand, smiling widely at her. “you’re a lifesaver, sweets.” she mumbles, tucking it safely into her pocket and hugging him tightly. he mumbles, “let’s hope i can sell all these before 6,” before stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets and leaving with a two-finger salute. him and toni’s thing when they were, what, 12? she giggles despite herself, mirroring his action and heading back to calculus. the hallways are empty, and she can hear her sneakers slapping on the floor, echoing through the vacant space. it makes her anxious. she prays her high will come a little quicker this time as she turns a corner and goes to head up the staircase, a hole burning in her pocket.

on the way there, though, she runs headfirst into a certain redhead. _what are the odds,_ she thinks bitterly. 

seeing cheryl makes her think about her relapse, and the familir heavy stone of guilt settles right into her stomach. "hey."  she grumbles, fiddling with the little yellow hall pass. cheryl pauses, fingers toying with the end of her vixens uniform. "hey." she says kindly, offering a nervous smile that toni doesn't respond to. the tension is so thick, you could cut it with the switchblade tucked into the bottom of her bookbag. (old habits die hard.)

she just stands there for a moment before turning to leave, and cheryl's hand wraps around her forearm quickly. "wait, listen, i'm really sorry about earlier, i just..."

"you just had to maintain your status, right?"

"toni, you know exactly how this school is. they'd eat you and me alive if they found out that what's going on between us is happening." the words sound rehearsed, slightly, and she finds herself wondering how long cheryl has been thinking about this.

"not you! you practically run this fucking school! you could, like, change the way the whole social system works, you just decide not to! what, are you embarrassed of me?" her thoughts are tumbling freely out of her, now, six days of pent up frustration spilling out onto cheryl, "or were you just having an amazing time with your amazing friends?"

"you don’t get it, do you? i can’t. as much as i would love to just walk in with you on my arm and say fuck you to everyone who doesn’t agree, i really can’t. my mother would ruin my life. the people i hang out with would turn on me in a second. hell, who knows, toni, i might even get kicked off the vixens team again. god, i have, like, so much on my plate, i have so much to lose... including you."

the truth in what she says hits toni like a truck, and she feels a little silly for even being mad in the first place. she notes the ‘again’ in the last sentence, too, willing herself to remember to ask about it later as she watches cheryl fall apart in front of her.

“i-i’m sorry, i just...” cheryl is still trying to say something else, tears bubbling in her eyes, threatening to spill over like they've almost been doing for the past minute. “i wish i could give you more." 

befofe she can even register what she’s doing, toni is rushing forward to wrap her arms around cheryl safely, feeling her body tremble all over. “you deserve better than me, toni...” a broken voice says into her ear, and it sends chills up her spine.

”better than you, cheryl? never.” 

”i feel like a coward.” cheryl says honestly, pale skin blotchy and flushed as she cries sweetly and slowly, the way that toni thinks only pretty girls know how to do. “you’re the furthest thing from a coward that i can think of.” she takes cheryl’s face in her hands, willing her to believe it. cheryl’s trembling fingers come up to cover toni’s, and they stand there for a second. toni wants to kiss her, but doesn’t want to risk them being seen by a passerby, so she pulls both of them into the girl’s bathroom. when they get there, the redhead rushes into a stall and locks the door behind them.

“do you have to go back to class?” cheryl practically whispers, looking like more of a mess than toni has ever seen her. “doesn’t veronica have that class with you? wait, hang on, i’ll text her and tell her to tell the teacher you had an emergency.”

and before toni can even say anything, cheryl is already typing rapidly, red nails clicking against the screen. she watches her text, looking through her while she looks through her phone, warmly realizing that this is what she looked like while she was texting toni for all that time. 

when she’s done, she stands there, looking lost. “i really want you to hold me, but i really don’t want to sit on the floor.” 

toni tugs off her hoodie, lays it out on the floor, sits with cheryl curled up in her lap (the height difference makes the redhead look like something similar to a sad giraffe) and lets her cry. “you’re the only good thing in my life right now, i feel like i’m going crazy but i just have to get through the next two months... i just...”

toni’s skin is crawling with need for another high, and she bites the inside of her lip as she rests her head against the wall of the bathroom stall, trying to focus on the broken girl in front of her instead of fiending for a fix. "do you want to get out of here? we can go to pop's, and...  hang out in your car, since we don't have anywhere else to go. yet. i'll buy you a big house one day." toni says absently, letting herself ramble. she's grown so accustomed to talking to cheryl, it's like second nature now. besides, the girl needs a distraction right now.

she can practically feel cheryl's smile. "toni, you're so..." she picks herself up, sitting up on her knees to hold toni's face and kiss her softly, "you're so good."

toni smiles. "let me be something good for you. okay? that's all i ever want to be." and she watches as cheryl cries a little more before standing herself up and dusting herself off. her hair is half up, half down today, gathered up in a scrunchie at the top of her head. toni thinks it looks adorable, feels a sudden urge to kiss her tug at her heartstrings. before they leave the stall, toni grabs her waist and pulls her into a chaste kiss. the grin that breaks out on both of their faces is practically euphoric. 

- 

somewhere in the hustle and bustle of cheryl getting into the car, toni grabs a can of redbull out of the bottom of her bookbag, cracking it open and discreetly slipping her pill into her mouth. cheryl either doesn't notice or doesn't bother to acknowledge it, swinging herself into the driver's seat and taking the red bull from toni and practically chugging half of it. "listen, I'm really sorry about earlier. genuinely. i just... it's a lot of pressure. the reality is, i have my status to uphold..." she grimaces guiltily, "i don't even know if i want to come out or whatever, yet-"

"cher. i won't force you to do that."

"yeah, but. it's still on my mind, y'know?"  

toni nods. she's been there before.

they pull into the parking lot of pop's, and it starts to drizzle. the grey clouds outside and the rain drops falling down lightly on the car's windows really match their  mood. "do you want to come in?" cheryl asks as she grabs a varsity jacket from her backseat. 

toni shakes her head, not sure if she can walk with the painkiller setting in. "are you..." cheryl starts, halfway out of the car, awkwardly between sitting and standing and giving toni a knowing look.

"i am."

"how many days since?"

"six."

"progress!” and cheryl just looks so proud of her that toni can’t bring herself to say anything pessimistic. instead, she leans awkwardly over the center console and grabs cheryl by the lapels of her jacket. “no one’s looking, i checked.” she mumbles into red lips as they connect to hers. she hums contently, happy to be here with the prettiest girl she’s ever seen. 

“be right back.” cheryl rushes inside and directly back out, arms filled with a large takeout bag and squealing adorably at the cold. her eyes scrunch up at the corners with her smile, and toni feels a tug at her heart. (the thought that she might be falling too fast crosses her mind. she ignores it.)

they move the car to a more secluded location near sweetwater river, pulling into a clearing and watching the rain coat the windows. they eat in silence for a few minutes, soft music playing from cheryl’s stereo that toni figures is lana del ray. she’d be surprised if it wasn’t. she’s halfway through a chicken tender when something occurs to her. “cher? 

cheryl seems to be snapped out of a daze, mumbling a “hmm?” around a mouthful of pancake. her eyebrow quirks as she turns to toni, eyes attentive. “what’s up?”

“earlier, you said... like, something about getting off the vixens- wait, fuck-“ 

cheryl chokes on her drink, chuckling. “yeah, that’s kind of the gist of it.” she composes herself enough to keep talking. “i got kicked off the vixens for, like, a day last year. they, um...” she trails off, suddenly avoiding eye contact. it strikes toni as unsettling, because cheryl always makes eye contact, no matter who she’s talking to. “when the integration happened, and my social status wasn’t really set in stone after my hideous family ruined it for me, rumors were flying about me and some girl from the southside. i don’t know why. but sarah patel, who had it out for me at that time, started a petition to kick me off the team because they couldn’t have a... on the team.”

her eyes start to water, and she closes the to go box and sets it on the floorboard, tucking her legs up onto the seat with her. she looks like she’s slowly folding in on herself, and it’s alarming toni to no end. “it was a bad time. cousin betty and veronica, thank god, let me back on the team immediately. those two are seriously unstoppable.” 

“cheryl... cher, was this around the time when-“

cheryl nods slowly. her eyes look cold, glassy, like the ice on sweet water river when she-

toni slides her hand down cheryl’s pale arm, watching the goosebumps rise as she intertwines their fingers. “i heard, y’know. from, like, jughead.”

“everyone did.” cheryl’s voice sounds so small, toni pushes aside the takeout bag and pulls cheryl’s frail frame into her lap, kissing her softly. “i wanted to talk to you, you know. even then." 

“and look at us now.” cheryl smiles a little, tracing a sharp red nail over toni’s jawline. “kiss me, toni.”

she doesn’t need to be told twice, swiftly tightening her grip on cheryl’s waist and not missing the way her hips twitch a little in response. their lips meet, and it feels like their own little world inside cheryl’s car, drowning in music and love that’s spilling out of both of them. “you’re beautiful,” toni mumbles into cheryl’s mouth, dragging her hand up to curl her fingers into copper curls and tugging a little. 

cheryl whimpers, hips twitching again. this time, toni doesn’t just notice; she moves her hands back down to cheryl’s hips and pushes the girl down onto her thigh. “toni,” she breathes her name like a prayer, and it sends chills up toni’s spine as she digs her nails into the exposed skin that the two piece uniform allows her.

the rain falls against the car loudly, fat raindrops splattering against the windows and sounding like a heavy drum beat that never ends.

they move against each other for a while, the car getting increasingly hot as cheryl lets toni maneuver her to chase her elusive end, curls bouncing and pale skin flushing adorably.toni regrets that her mind isn’t clear at the moment, but over the months, cloudy has become her new clear. she pushes the thought away, instead opting to attach her lips to cheryl’s collarbone, biting at the skin that seems to span miles and miles.

cheryl grabs toni’s hand from her waist to under her pleated skirt, looking incredibly nervous. toni hesitates, unsure, mumbling “you want-?”

“please.” cheryl spits desperately, already rocking against toni’s fingers and trying to get any sort of friction that she can. toni meets her halfway, keeping her fingers over red panties and rubbing tight circles that cheryl seems to love. her eyes roll back slightly. toni practically fucking drools.

part of her mind still tugs at her, telling her that the first time should be special, and not rushed in a car while fifth period calculus is still happening. "cher-" she mumbles, cupping cheryl's face in her hands softly, "maybe we should wait? maybe it should be, like... different. nicer." she vaguely gestures to the car around them.

cheryl doesn't even skip a beat, just mumbles "thank you for thinking about that, tt," and kisses her softly before laying her head on toni's chest and pulling the jacket a little tighter around her.

she falls asleep, right there in toni’s arms, snoring adorably. toni watches the clock, watches twenty minutes pass and lets her mind wander. they both startle when cheryl’s phone rings loudly. a pale hand grapples for the device sitting in the center console blindly, and toni watches her read the contact name, watches her eyes shoot open in alarm. “fuck. it’s my mom.”

“oh shit.” toni concurs in a similar panicked tone, watching as cheryl collects herself before picking up. “hello, mother.” she says with impeccable acting skills. toni wouldn’t believe she was doing anything bad if she was the one on the other end of the call. however, she doesn't miss the way that cheryl fidgets restlessly, anxious and completely showing it. toni listens to the indistinct sound of cheryl's mother screeching on the other side of the call and finds herself wondering how cheryl puts up with that voice in her ear 24/7. she's pondering if she, herself, could possibly survive that when cheryl finally starts to speak.

"actually, i decided to leave early. i wasn't feeling well, so i stopped by pop's and grabbed a meal. i'm on my way back to thistlehouse now." a pause. "okay. yes, mother. okay. goodbye." as soon as cheryl hangs up, she groans loudly, throwing her phone down against the car seat in frustration. "the school called her... she's waiting for me at thistlehouse... of course." she toys with a lock of toni's hair, twirling it around her finger, "i'll miss you."

toni can basically feel her heart melt. "what are you gonna do when you get home?"

"shower... practice. call you, if you're lucky." cheryl tries to wink, but fails miserably, and they allow themselves a minute to laugh at the absurdity of her eye twitching, a reprieve from the darkness and gloom of the outside world. eventually, though, cheryl hops back into the front seat and drives toni all the way back to jughead's trailer, insisting on getting a kiss before she gets out of the car.

"today was really good." toni tells cheryl as she opens the door, trying to memorize the girl's tired smile. "you look really pretty right now." she says mindlessly, chemicals swimming in her system completely removing her filter.

"bye, toni." cheryl says sweetly, and she stays to watch toni walk in, not leaving until the door is closed.


	9. kills my deepest hunger

toni is no stranger to the trials and tribulations of being sober, but she’s finding new coping mechanisms every day.

she calls cheryl on the phone more often, facetimes her while doing homework, sneaks her into jughead’s trailer, and they’ve had more than one make out session in the bathroom when toni just needs to take out her frustration. none of it seems to compare to being blissfully ignorant and drugged out of her mind. it comes close, though, or at least that’s what she’s been telling herself for the longest. (part of her whispers that she shouldn’t be so dependent on cheryl, but cheryl is just as obsessed with her. they’re both in deep.)

what she didn’t expect is that after the one week mark, her energy levels shoot up and down like crazy. today, for example, she had a fight with cheryl in fifth period (over literally nothing, she was just looking for a fight) and now, in mr. dullard’s class, she’s nodding off. literally. she keeps catching herself falling asleep and waking up when her chin hits her chest. in between her dozing, she hears something about a project being assigned, the final project to close off the odyssey unit, but she turned on a voice memo when she came in here to catch everything she misses. the bell mercifully rings after what seems like twenty minutes.

“saved by the bell.” cheryl mumbles as she walks out, not looking at toni as she says it. she never looks at her when they talk at school. toni knows it’s for a good reason- a damn good reason, honestly- but it irks her today. her mood flips like a switch, and she feels like stomping as she walks out to her bike.

fangs runs into her as she’s walking through the crowd, and even in her annoyed state, she smiles at the sight of him. “tiny! i haven’t seen you in forever!”

“i was with you last night.” she reminds him, chuckling.

“and i missed you for all of today. where were you during lunch?”

“retaking a history test.” she lies easily. the truth is that she was propping cheryl up on the girl’s bathroom sink and dragging her nails down her pale thighs, but if she even mentions that she knows she’ll get lectured.

“ever the scholar.” he elbows her lightly, and she rolls her eyes. “listen, me and some other serpents are going out tonight. apparently, just up the road, there’s this club. el diamanté. they’re super loose on their no-minors policy, and with our fake id’s, we’ll definitely get in. i know, you’re doing this whole sobriety thing, but you’ve looked miserable the past two weeks.”

“has it really been two weeks?” she inquires, retracing her steps. yes, last time was on january 7th, and today was january 21st. “holy fuck.”

“i’m proud of you, tiny, but i don’t want you to overestimate how long you can go and have it end up like last time.”

she shudders at the memory, pushing it back into where she’d repressed it. “okay, yeah. you’re right.” she pauses. “it’s a school night.”

he laughs his stupid fangs laugh, practically a giggle. “when have we ever worried about whether it’s a school night? you’re a fucking straight a student.”

and with that, toni nods and lets herself be added to the group chat of people going, all unknown numbers that she doesn’t recognize. the bad feeling is pulling at her, but maybe this is just what she needs. a reprieve from being sober, from cheryl, before she tries to go a month without the pills.

-

she gets a facetime call from cheryl as she’s getting ready. she tries to ignore it, she really does, but she can’t. begrudgingly, she answers and props her phone up on the bathroom mirror.

“hey.” cheryl’s bubbly voice comes rushing out of her phone speakers. “what are you up to?”

two hands tangled in her own hair, dutch braiding it, toni replies “getting ready. i’m, um, going out with fangs and some other serpents.”

“going out where?”

toni shrugs. “just some club, somewhere.” she says weakly. honestly, she hadn’t prepared for what she was going to tell cheryl, and it wasn’t even a whole lie. it was, technically, just some club somewhere.

“what’s the name of it?”

“i don’t know. why are you so curious?” toni says a little too aggressively as she finishes off her second braid, almost popping the hair tie.

“because i want you to be safe, toni.” cheryl doesn’t even sound annoyed. she never gets annoyed at toni when she’s sober and snapping at her, and it somehow just gets under her skin even more.

“i will be, don’t worry.” she mumbles, willing herself to calm down a little bit so she doesn’t lash out at cheryl again. the last thing she needs is a fight, but she simultaneously feels herself itching for one.

“are you... planning on doing anything?” for the first time, toni looks at her screen, seeing cheryl sitting at her desk and typing at her computer. she’s still not looking at toni. it makes her want to scream.

“as in...”

“you know what i mean, toni.” cheryl really isn’t having any of her bullshit today, it seems. “it’s been two whole weeks. what, are you just gonna throw that away?”

toni pauses. “i can’t go any longer. trust me. i know myself. i’m just gonna get enough of a fix tonight, and then i’m gonna see if i can go for three weeks, maybe even four. but i can’t do it all simultaneously.”

“why not?” cheryl says incredulously. “you’ve been doing so good.”

“because last time i went for three weeks without anything, i ended up seizing on the floor of fangs’ trailer. foaming at the mouth and shit.”

“oh.”

there’s a long, uncomfortable silence. “i didn’t know.” cheryl says quietly.

“because i didn’t tell you.” toni says simply. “i’m sorry. i’ve been crazed.”

“it’s okay, toni, i understand. i hope you have fun. please be safe.”

“i will, babe.” the pet name slips easily. everything is easy with cheryl, it seems, everything except for toni trying to quit.

-

so, toni overdoes it. a lot.

on the way there, one of fangs’ friends (alex, maybe?) pulls out a bottle of robotussin and everyone else in the car starts to chug from it, except for the appointed driver, the only other girl in the car. toni almost rolls her eyes. robotripping? how fucking juvenile can you get? her and fangs hadn’t done this since they were 14 and experimenting.

when it gets to her, she peers into the bottle curiously, even though she can’t see anything. the sickly sweet smell of a promise of a good time wafts up to her nostrils. she can’t remember much of how it was when her and fangs tried it 3 years ago, but she doesn’t remember it being too horrendous. apparently, neither does fangs, as he’s got cough syrup all over his hands.

fuck it, she decides, throwing it back and drinking as much as she can take. everyone in the car cheers.

it hits some of them faster than others. she’s somewhere in limbo, drifting and trying to enjoy it, when bottles of pills are getting offered to her. fangs passes on two of them, popping one of what’s in the third bottle. when they get offered to her, she studies the label as closely as she can in the low light of dusk. the first one, she recognizes as adderall immediately. she always thought adderall was pretty, with its orange capsule and the brand name printed on. the second one is xanax, little yellow bars of it. the yellow bars are 2 milligrams, the peach shaped oval ones are .5 milligrams, and the blue ones are 1 milligram. the information is ingrained into her mind, and she flips through it like a catalog.

she doesn’t recognize the last bottle, nudging fangs and holding one of the pills up curiously.

“valium.” he states matter-of-factly, “it’s basically the same thing as xanax.”

“should i?”

he smiles a little, shrugging. “it’s up to you. it won’t really do anything, it’s only 2 milligrams. besides, you have a tolerance.”

she’s missed this. she’s missed these days of experimenting and feeling an assortment of pills on her tongue, not sure what some of them would do. it’s intoxicating. it’s addicting.

she takes all three pills, swallowing them with a mouthful of red bull and resting her head on fang’s shoulder for the rest of the ride.

-

the rest of the ride turns out to be two minutes, and the club looms ominously over them, all neon lights and pulsing music. “id?” the bouncer says lazily, barely glancing at the little plastic cards that list their age as 21 before nodding them inside.

the inside of the club is adorned with strobe lights and such, a large dance floor situated in the middle with bars on either side. there’s a double staircase on the farthest side of the room, leading up to a second level that overlooks the whole first floor.

“holy shit.” fangs breathes next to her, eyes drifting across all of it.

“i wanna go dance.” she says confidently, suddenly feeling like she’s very much in her element and leading him out to the dance floor, crowded with people who barely look older than them and some that are clearly adults.

two songs pass, then three, and she finds that the combat boots she’s wearing just keep getting heavier on her feet. fangs is practically holding her up by the fourth song, sitting her down halfway through on one of the many plush couches that line the walls. “i feel so good.” she mumbles happily, leaning into him. “me too.” he smiles genuinely, all sharp white teeth and cracking lips. there’s cough syrup on the collar of the flannel he’s wearing under his leather jacket. toni tries to tell him, but her tongue is suddenly too big for her mouth and she can’t hold her head up.

somewhere in the haze, fangs gets up to get a drink, and toni is left somewhat alone on the couch. she can still see the rest of fangs’ friends on the dance floor, watching her. it makes her feel safe.

she opens up her phone, playing with her tights and the hem of her skirt with her other hand, scrolling through her contacts until she finds cheryl’s. “i miss you” she types, sending the message and finding that she can only keep one eye open.

ten minutes or an hour later, her phone is buzzing incessantly in her hand and she stumbles into the bathroom of the club, which is mercifully empty. when she looks at it, she sees cheryl’s face and contact name. it makes her smile as she accepts. “hello?” she forces out with some difficulty.

“toni? are you okay?” cheryl sounds concerned, and toni just can’t figure out why.

“i’m good! i’m so good! they’re playing my favorite song.” she mumbles, purposefully avoiding looking in the mirror as she goes to lock the bathroom door. “and i’m robotripping!” she adds, feeling that it’s important, “i can’t feel my legs.”

“what are you on?” cheryl says, almost desperately.

“calm downnnnn. i’m okay.”

“what are you on, toni?”

toni goes to twirl the cord to the phone before realizing that there’s no cord and laughing so hard at herself that she snorts. “um... adderall, and xanax, and v-valium, and robotussin.”

“you need to slow down. what’s the name of the club? i’m coming to pick you up.”

“ugh! why? i’m having such a fun time, i was... dancing, and fangs is barely even high, so it doesn’t even hat- doesn’t even m-matter.”

“toni, please tell me the name of the club.” in the background, toni can faintly hear the sound of cheryl’s car starting up.

“el... el diamanté.” she chuckles. “spanish is my first language, did i ever tell you that? my mom and my dad used to talk to me in spanish, they would always sing to me in spanish and call me... i can’t remember what they w-would call me, but i miss it... i miss them.”

“that’s sweet, toni. you can tell me about it more when i get there.”

“will you be here soon? i-“ she hiccups, “i miss you, cheryl.”

“so soon. i’m speeding. the gps says 20 minutes, but i can try to cut it down to 10.”

“i miss you, cheryl...” toni mumbles softly, resting her head against the wall and rolling it back and forth.

she eventually unlocks the door to the bathroom so cheryl can get in when she gets there, talking and eventually realizing that she’s mumbling nonsense. “i-i’m not making sense, am i?” she giggles.

“you’re not, toni. you’re really not.”

-

cheryl comes into the bathroom with bags under her eyes, dressed like she just threw on whatever clothes she saw first. her crop top, jeans, and heels don't match at all. she frantically looks around the bathroom before turning to her right and seeing toni curled up practically in a ball on the floor.

"cheryl." she says with some difficulty, smiling widely.

said girl doesn't say anything, just picks up toni bridal style and carries her out of the club and sits her in the passenger seat of her car. before she starts the car, she reaches into the back seat and pulls out a flannel that toni vaguely recognizes.

she must be staring at it, because cheryl clarifies, "its yours. arms up." toni does as she's told, lets cheryl maneuver her out of the complicated straps of the velvet tank top that she's wearing and into the soft green flannel. "thank you." toni says quietly as cheryl buttons it up.

"no problem, toni." cheryl mumbles tiredly, pressing a kiss to the crown of toni's head and pulling out of the parking lot of the club.

the atmosphere in the car is strange. toni feels like she’ll get in trouble if she talks, so she keeps her mouth shut. mostly.

she drops her head against the seat, rolling it to the side so she can look at cheryl. “you’re pretty.” she says absentmindedly, training her eyes across cheryl’s figure. her eyes land in her arms, finding that newly formed bruises are adorning her pale skin. “cheryl... your arm-“

“my mother.” she says quietly. “we got into an argument, that’s all. don’t worry about it, okay?” she takes her eyes off the road for a second to intertwine her fingers with toni’s, smiling weakly. “how are you feeling?”

toni considers that question for a second before getting distracted. “are you taking me to your house?”

“yes. how are you feeling?”

“okay... tingly. all over. i want... want to fucking... i don’t even know what i want. i don’t feel good, cher, i don’t fucking feel g-good. i w-want you to hold me.”

“soon.” cheryl assures her, kissing her knuckles. “yknow, you were talking about your parents on the phone and it seemed like it was making you happy. do you want to keep talking about them?” and toni knows somewhere deep in her that cheryl is trying to divert her attention, but she can’t bring herself to care.

“my dad was the best. he had these big shoulders i would sit on, with his serpent jacket, and he always smelled like aftershave and peppermints... daddy loved peppermints.” she smiles at the memories washing over her, seemingly in waves, “he would call me toni the tiger, and i had this blanket with a tiger on it that i would always sleep with. i still have it...” she trails off.

“and... your mom?”

toni giggles a little. “my mom was so cool, she had all these tattoos, she had my name tattooed on the top of her, like, forearm.” she’s remembering something, and it’s pulling at her, something about that tattoo. whatever it is is too deep in her mind for her to reach, and she gives up on trying to remember it. “umm, she used to bake sometimes and let me crack the eggs and stuff. she got me my bike, actually, before... before-“ it’s tugging at her. she can almost see it.

“we’re here.” cheryl softly informs her, “you can keep telling me when we get inside, if you want.”

“maybe.” toni frowns. “i don’t think i can walk.”

she decides to try before cheryl can stop her, stumbling like a baby deer all the way to the front door before something stops her. “your mom?”

“she left. i don’t know when she’ll be back, but she left.”

toni nods, feeling time and space move around her as she does so. obviously, this high isn’t going to wear off until a few hours pass, so she lets cheryl guide her inside and lays down on her bed, sprawling out across it. she watches cheryl get ready for bed, brushing her teeth and hair and looking for pajamas. “don’t wear anything long, please. i want to feel you.”

cheryl looks at her a little strangely, but settles on a tank top and shorts, and doesn’t say anything when toni cuddles right up to her as she lays down.

“your mom hit you.” toni says quietly, running her fingers over the bruises. “didn’t she?”

“she did.” cheryl says, devoid of emotion, staring up at the roof of her four poster bed.

“why?”

cheryl sighs, fidgeting. “she’s mad because i’m a... because i like girls.”

“you like me.” toni notes, wrapping a strand of cheryl’s red hair around her finger. “you... had to come rescue me. after your mom hit you.” it makes her a little upset, and she frowns. “i’m sorry.”

“it’s okay, toni. i can’t be mad at you.”

toni’s frown deepens. all this talk of mothers has her thinking of hers, and she can’t remember that stupid thing about her tattoo, and the cakes she would make, and-

“my mom. i can’t remember... i can’t-“ toni wants to cry, suddenly, but it’s been so long since she cried.

“toni?” cheryl whispers, brushing her hair away from her face and scanning her features. the cakes, and the tattoo, and her mom-

it comes washing over her, suddenly, the wave just comes crashing down on her with no warning and no end in sight. she remembers.

“my mom killed herself.” she says suddenly. “i couldn’t remember because i’m not sober. i remember now.”

cheryl shifts uncomfortably, looking like she doesn’t know what to say to that. “do you want to talk about it?”

toni thinks about it for a second. if she goes to bed thinking about her mom, she’ll have the nightmares again. besides, this is a piece of her she wants to share with cheryl, but can’t when she’s sober. she’s not sure of the next time she’ll be high. hopefully never.

“whenever i think about it, all i can think about is why she couldn’t wait just a little bit longer, two days longer. it w-was the day before my birthday,” cheryl’s grip on her tightens, “and she was gonna make me a cake, one of those cakes with the confetti in it, and ice it with purple icing and... i fucking hate the color purple now. we were gonna go to chuck e. cheese, which was a big deal, because we were poor. and we went to the gas station that day, me and my dad, and he let me pick out one... one thing, because he didn’t have a lot of money... and the-“ she stops. “fuck, the room is spinning.” and cheryl holds her tightly and lets toni kiss her until it stops.

“you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, toni...” cheryl reminds her, taking down her braids one at a time and running her fingers through toni’s hair.

“i want to... i need to, i want you to know, because you’re important to me.” toni says firmly. “i bought a rabbit’s foot, a pink rabbit’s foot, with a keychain on it. pink was her favorite color, and i thought that it would bring her good luck if she carried it on her keys. and when we got home i was so excited to show her, but i couldn’t find her. i looked all through the trailer, except for the bathroom. i knew something was wrong before i even opened the bathroom door, but i just... her eyes, they were open still, staring at the faucet, and her arms were cut open, she was still- still holding the razor, my dad’s razor, and the tattoo of my name, she cut through it, and-“ she starts stumbling over her words, a sense of urgency crawling up her throat, trying to get it all out in one sentence.

she gets up quickly, running to cheryl’s bathroom and puking up everything in her violently. cheryl just watches with sad eyes, tying her hair back into a bun and rubbing her back. she holds toni when there’s nothing left in her to vomit up, wraps her frail frame in her arms and lets her cry. “thank you for telling me about that, baby. i’m sorry you had to go through that, you’re so strong, you’re so good.”

toni just cries and lets cheryl give her water and lay her down. somewhere around 2 am, she kisses cheryl’s jaw and lets herself fall asleep.

-

when toni wakes up, the first thing she says is an apology. “i’m so sorry you had to deal with me last night.”

“good morning to you too.” cheryl grumbles, turning off her alarm. “how are you feeling?”

“i’m feeling fine, i just...” toni’s eyes drift to cheryl’s arm, and the memories of last night come rushing back. “your mom hit you.”

cheryl nods a little, blinking sleep out of her eyes. “it’s fine, honestly, i couldn’t care le-“

“cheryl. that’s not fine. that’s, like, the farthest thing from fine that i can think of. oh my god, i’m gonna kill her. she did it because... something about you liking girls?”

“she saw a note from you in my bookbag, the one we were passing during dullard’s class next week.”

note in question immediately pops into toni’s mind, but it was just harmless conversation about archie and veronica. “did i call you pretty in that note? is that why she got mad?”

cheryl nods solemnly. “she got pissed. she just hit me, like, once with this stupid belt she’d always threaten me and jason with. it barely even hurt. she’s just a witch.”

with that, cheryl gets up to head to the bathroom, but pauses on the way there. “you told me about your mom last night.” she says stiffly.

“yeah, i remember... are you freaked?”

cheryl shakes her head, expression unreadable. “thank you for sharing that with me, i really... appreciate it. even if you were cross faded. at least you’re not snapping at me anymore.” she makes her way back over to toni, kissing her slowly. she lets toni take control this time, sensing that she needs it. “we’re both really fucked up.” toni pulls away and notes, and cheryl laughs a little, nodding.

“so fucked up.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woo for unhealthy coping mechanisms that will definitely come back to bite them in the ass next chapter!  
> ps. robotripping was only cool in 2005 and its not nearly as fun as the name makes it seem!


	10. i’m bruised, face of contusions

neither of them want to get off of cheryl's car when they reach the school.

cheryl parks in the very back of the parking lot, secluded under some trees. "you think this will hide us?" she asks precariously, looking around at the students passing by a fair distance away from them. "cher, we're pretty far away, and your windows are tinted." toni reminds her patiently, still trying to be supportive and understanding with cheryl's paranoia of either of them getting caught. cheryl bites the inside of her cheek, sighs a little, then relaxes. "i’m still adjusting."

toni nods. "me too."

a moment passes. "i don't wanna go." toni says bluntly, and cheryl laughs, "I was just thinking that. come here," she says quietly, pulling toni carefully into the front seat and pushing the seat back so they'd have more room.

toni rests her hands on cheryl's abdomen and kisses her sweetly, sneaking her small hands under the fabric of the red crop top that is very in her way right now. it makes the redhead whimper when toni rakes her nails down a toned stomach, and she does it again, looking to make the girl make more pretty sounds. cheryl's hands mirror her actions, slipping up and under her loose-fitting long sleeve to touch her chest with trembling hands.

she’s always loved cheryl’s hands. pretty, and delicate, and always shaking. unstable in the most comforting way.

"I'm yours." cheryl whispers against her lips, wrapping her arms around toni's small frame to pull her impossibly closer.

toni swears she sees stars.

-

sweet pea nudges her from the desk next to her halfway through psychology, poking her with the lead of his mechanical pencil when she doesn't turn around the first time. "ow, what?" she hisses.

"would you be interested in working at the wyrm again?"

toni is stunned for a second, before stuttering out "r-really?"

sweet pea nods, goes to say something else before stopping himself as the teacher begins droning on again. he fishes an index card out of his book bag, holding a finger up to toni in the dorkiest motion she's ever seen. she has to stifle a laugh.

after about a minute of him scribbling quickly on the paper and crossing out misspelled words while grunting in frustration, he passes it to her. "they fired jack, he was coming in early and messing with everyone's paycheck so he'd get more money on his. he jsut just got found out. so now there is a spot open for you to come back to work. tall boy would love to have you back."

she's about to write a reply when the boy coughs and motions for her to flip the card over. "jug wants us to go on a serpent misionmission thursday night in ghoulie territory they've been tagging the back trailers because we've been laying low lately do you think you can come?" ah, yes, the back trailers that no one stays in. no wonder they tagged them, she thinks to herself, because they thought no one would come after them for it.

she nods, prints "yes 2 both" and smiles back when he smiles, a toothy, boyish grin that she's missed seeing.

-

cheryl hangs around toni as much as she can while they're at school, making her way to the practice room during lunch and texting toni to meet her there. as soon as. she walks into the room, she's pulled into a long kiss, followed by "how are you feeling?"

toni shrugs. to be honest, she’s not one hundred percent- she’s still stiff and awkward feeling, and her head has been pounding for the past six hours- but the worst of it is over. “like, seventy percent less messed up.”

cheryl chuckles dryly, "good. you were... seriously fucked up."

toni shakes her head, still disappointed in herself. "honestly, i can't believe I let you see me like that... I'm sorry." she locks the door to the practice room and walks them over to a corner where they aren't visible by the prying eyes of their fellow students which are almost always fixed on cheryl. "you really don't have to apologize, tt." cheryl mumbles, playing with stray hairs that fall out of toni's braids that she redid for school today.

"it just feels like I disappointed you..." toni's voice trails off, falling into a tense silence until cheryl pulls her into a kiss. "relapses happen, toni. you'll be okay."

"we'll be okay." toni corrects her swiftly, brushing her fingertips over the bruises on cheryl's arm. "your mom?"

"i’m scared to go home today." cheryl confesses, sighing. "thank god for vixens practice."

"i have work today." toni blurts.

that catches cheryl off guard. "you work? since when?"

"i haven’t, recently. i talked to sweet pea last period, though, and apparently they laid off the guy that was taking my place, when things were really bad... so, I'm gonna go back to working there. maybe ill make enough money to have my own trailer."

"wouldn't that be something?" cheryl smiles dreamily. toni practically swoons. she's never seen cheryl like this for anyone, so seeing this side of her and knowing that she's the one who brought it out is a whole other type of high for toni.

"why don't you come by? after vixens practice? i’m working ‘til 8.”

the atmosphere changes immediately. she can practically feel cheryl’s apprehension and embarrassment washes over her for being too eager. "i mean, it's only a ten minute drive from pop's. so, only if you want to,but it's right on the other side of the tracks. close to sunny side."

cheryl cuts her off with a kiss that quickly turns heated, and they make out for a minute or two. the usual way that tense atmospheres are resolved for them. "i'd love to. whats the place?"

-

she heads straight to the white wyrm afterschool, which she hasn't done in months. it's a weird change from her usual routine, but a welcome one. as soon as she walks in, it's obvious how much everyone has missed her. various bar patrons, most of them regulars, wave at her from the tables or the bar stools. "toni!" fangs exclaims, jumping up from one of the bar stools and pulling her into a tight hug. "are you okay? i talked to cheryl as you guys were walking out, but I was worried, you haven't answered my texts-"

"i've been busy." she cuts him off, smiling sympathetically, "and what happened last night is never happening again. nothing to worry about."

"cheryl blossom, huh?" sweet pea walks up to them from behind the counter, swinging a rag over her shoulder. "are you two a thing? does teeny tiny toni have a girlfriend that we didn't know about?" when he crosses his arms over his chest like he does now, his size is just accentuated by his tight black t shirt. the juxtaposition between him and her is almost comical, with a height difference of nearly five inches and his arms being three times the size of hers.

"speak for yourself,” fangs teases, “i heard about it before winter break."

sweet pea fakes being offended, pressing a large hand to his chest. "oh really?"

"anyways!" she stresses the word, much to the boys' amusement. "why is jug suddenly sending us on a serpent mission? it's been, like, two months."

both of them shrug, looking genuinely clueless. fangs pipes up with, "he just wants us to go tag some of their stuff. we all told him that it's petty and stupid, but he's really intent on getting them back for some reason." sweet pea adds, "he's going through some things with betty. he probably just wants to take some of his frustration out, but it's gonna put us in danger... when we told him that, he didn't wanna hear it."

toni nods, processing all that information. "well, at least i can go with you guys now."

sweet pea smiles, pokes her in the ribs. "definitely, now that you're squeaky clean."

tall boy emerges out of the back room and looks delighted at the sight of toni, and she'd be lying if she claimed that she wasn't happy to see him too. if fp was the father figure of the gang, tall boy would be a weird uncle, and it's a role that he plays well. there's no pomp or circumstance to her arrival, just a name tag slapped into her palm and a "welcome back, antonio." from him, his own weird little nickname for her.

she slips back into her job easily, balancing multiple glasses in her arms at once in a competition with sweet pea as to who could clean the most tables first. it's sort of a slow day for the bar, so the evening passes quickly. the lighting from the sunset seeps into the bar through the plywood over the window, turning everything inside and her friends yellow. she sorely wishes she had her camera with her. as time passes, sweet pea just keeps getting more and more competitive, and she's in the process of balancing a shot glass on her nose when suddenly, fangs and sweet pea go quiet. "guys, wha-" she picks up the shot glass quickly, returning it to its place on the bar when she glances up to see that cheryl has just walked in, looking utterly out of place in her vixens uniform.

"hi." she says quietly, and toni notices the difference from their usual "hey" immediately. her shoulders are tensed, and everything about her just screams "out of place."

"hey, baby." toni greets her casually, strolling up to her and planting a kiss on her cheek. the last thing that she wants to do is overwhelm cheryl with a real kiss. the girl relaxes quickly, all the tension leaving her body and melting into a smile. “glad you could make it. not that you don't already know them, but this is fangs and sweet pea."

"yeah, of course. toni talks about you guys all the time."

"all good things, I'm hoping." sweet pea says amiably. his large frame takes a seat on the large leather couch directly next to the bar. fangs just stands awkwardly, looking like he doesn't quite know what to do with himself. “tiny didn’t tell us she had a girlfriend.” he says, only semi-awkwardly, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“tiny?” cheryl says amusedly, tentatively taking a seat at the bar that toni’s stationed behind. “oh my god.” toni rolls her eyes in embarrassment that’s only a little exaggerated, “it’s from when we were little.”

“yeah, and you were praying for a growth spurt that would never happen.” fangs says a little more confidently. sweet pea laughs wholeheartedly, “teeny tiny toni who fell off the monkey bars with me and broke both our arms.”

they talk about past memories that toni hadn’t thought about in the longest, things she’d almost forgot about, her mind clouded with xanax and percocet and ativan.

it’s nice, seeing her girlfriend and her two best friends interact. it feels easy. she throws her head back and laughs when cheryl accuses them of being straight out of “the outsiders” and sweet pea shoots back that she’s “so cherry valance.”

-

lunchtime piano practice with cheryl gets shorter and shorter, it seems. cheryl has stopped messing up. she plays the piece over and over and plugs in headphones to the electric keyboard so toni doesn’t have to listen. “practice makes perfect.” toni reminds her humorously one day. cheryl practically beams.

-

the days fly by in a blur, all piano practice with cheryl and shifts at the white wyrm. cheryl comes in two more times that week, shooting pool with fangs and sweet pea and managing to somehow fit in perfectly. toni practically glows with pride when fp walks in, claps cheryl’s shoulder and says “welcome to the family.” with a sense of finality.

toni’s family. “my family and me.” she whispers under her breath when she turns to wash the dishes.

-

she’s not sure how cheryl will take the news of the serpent mission when she tells her, so she holds off for a little bit. it’s wednesday afternoon and she’s making out with cheryl in the school bathroom when she comes clean.

“cheryl?” she says, hushed even though she knows no one will hear them. “hm?” is cheryl’s intelligent response.

“i have a serpent mission on thursday, and i’ll probably have more soon after that. i’m gonna be in ghoulie territory, but it’s nothing to worry about. i’ll be fine.”

cheryl looks at her with concerned, foggy eyes, pulling toni closer by her waist. she peppers kisses all over toni’s face softly as an angel’s wings, pulls back to smile at her. “be careful, tiny.” she says, only half joking, and toni kisses her assuredly.

-

that night, toni spends the night at sweet pea’s trailer. his huge frame flops down on his bed, practically catapulting her off of it. “sweets!” she yells accusedly over his rambunctious laughter. “i honestly just wanted to see if i could still do that.” he says between chuckles, and toni can’t help but laugh with him. he turns on a movie, some animal planet ocean documentary. for a time, they get lost in the footage. both of them make commentary on “how fucking big whales are” and how “sea lions are genuinely so fucking scary.” toni turns on her side to face the wall halfway through it, hardly able to keep her eyes open. “you going to sleep?” sweet pea mumbles, half asleep himself.

toni nods with a yawn, tracing her fingers over the cool wall like she’s done so many times before. he settles down into the sheets himself, switching off the lamp that sits on his nightstand. somehow, even though it’s been so long, sleeping in a bed with sweet pea in only a flannel and underwear doesn’t feel strange or awkward at all. she feels like she’s exactly where she needs to be. she turns on her back to stare up at the ceiling fan, and eventually, sweet pea speaks again.

“you have something special with that girl, toni. don’t ruin it. she’s really into you.” his voice rumbles through her, shaking her to her core as his words wash over her like water. something special. don’t ruin it. she’s into you. she’s really into you.

“you really think so?” she asks, still not convinced that cheryl isn’t going to up and leave one day.

“mhm. if i didn’t know any better, i’d say you’re in love.” toni’s breath catches in her throat at that statement, but sweet pea is snoring before she can say anything else.

before she falls asleep, she pulls out her phone to text cheryl goodnight, her mind racing. she types out ten different messages, but none of them seem right. she settles for “you’re everything to me. goodnight pretty girl <3” and tumbles into the embrace of sleep before she can stop herself.

-

the next day, she wears her serpent jacket. it’s been a while, but it still fits comfortably over her shoulders like a second skin, and she has to fight a smile at the familiarity of it.

“feel good to be back?” sweet pea calls from the bathroom, watching her from the bathroom as he styles his hair. she just nods, smiling and running a hand through her pink tresses. “how are we getting to school?”

“oh...shit, you know, i didn’t even think about that.” he admits, wiping gel off his hands to lunge for his phone.

“what kind of host are you?” toni asks, feigning annoyance as she grabs a pop tart out of the cabinet. it’s strawberry flavored, which reminds her of cheryl, which reminds her to check her phone.

“Ditto, tt. Can’t sleep. Thinking of you.”

“Come to thistlehouse tomorrow night if things go wrong. I made sure mother will be out with a client.”

she sends out a quick “yes ma’am” before sweet pea is speaking again, something about “we’re getting a ride with jug and archie!” as he rushes to put on his shoes.

she doesn’t particularly dislike archie. he’s sweet, and good, everything a kid oughta be. the town’s golden boy, and he’s been nice to her since she got here during the integration.

she swings herself into his backseat with a “good morning, america!” and a pop tart that she throws into jug’s lap. “oh, thank god, i didn’t get to eat breakfast this morning.” he mumbles, ripping open the package with the animosity of a starving grizzly bear. “one of those is for archie.” toni reminds him sorely, and archie throws her a quick smile of appreciation before downing a pop tart of his own in two bites.

the ride to school is peppered with conversation, mostly about cars and such that toni occasionally jumps in with comments on. as soon as they get to school, though, the atmosphere changes. it’s time to put on their masks, it’s evident as archie parks near the back and they go their separate ways immediately after getting out of the car. archie waves at her amiably, though, so she supposes it’s not that bad.

“so you have a thing for redheads?” jughead pipes up suddenly, and she smacks him on the arm as he laughs at himself. she can’t deny that she’s smiling too. “i just think he’s really nice... he’s not like everyone else in this town, yknow?”

jughead nods knowingly, squinting as he watches archie walk off. “he’s got a good heart. but around here, that’s just not enough.”

she thinks about the statement all day.

-

“good luck, baby.” cheryl proclaims as she’s dropping toni off at jughead’s trailer, “not that you’ll need it. i know you’re the best one there.” she squeezes toni’s hand softly, nothing but love shining in her eyes, and it makes the brunette giddy.

toni smiles, rolls her eyes in fake bashfulness and waves cheryl off like she’s a crazed fan.

“i’ll swing by if things go wrong.”

cheryl nods solemnly, “but they won’t, right?” and toni can practically hear the doubt in her voice.

“they won’t.” she says confidently, not sure if she’s trying to convince cheryl or herself as she leaves her with a kiss.

she’s greeted with jeers from the boys as she steps inside jug’s trailer, exclamations of “juliet and juliet!” echoing off the walls. toni laughs with them, punches jughead in the arm and goes to his spare room to change her clothes. she doesn’t change much, just her light wash jeans into black ones, and switches her sneakers to the all-black combat boots she’s had for the longest. they’ll have the cover of night, yes, but it took toni a broken rib to learn that just being in darkness is not enough, and the wrong wardrobe pick could get you caught.

“toni!” jughead calls from the kitchen, and she buttons up her pants and leaves the room quickly. “what’s up?”

when she gets into the kitchen, he’s holding a tiny black box, the one she recognizes as her jewelry box. “remember?” he says wistfully, holding it out to her with a lopsided smile.

she does remember- she remembers the night that he broke up with betty, and they made out in his bed for a solid hour before eventually collapsing of exhaustion the day had brought them. she’s revolted at the thought now, but at the time, jughead was exactly what she wanted in a boy. edgy, and intelligent, and mysterious enough to be intriguing but not too intimidating. she had taken all her rings off, put them on his bedside table before she went to sleep. she doesn’t remember why, maybe just a routine she had, but she hadn’t seen those rings in over a year. “my rings.” she breathes out, smiling, “it’s been so long,”

“i’ve been trying to get them all together. i found a bunch the other day when i was cleaning my room, and one had rolled under my bed.”

“thank you, jug.” she says gratefully, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him with everything she’s got, which he gratefully returns. “i found the box!” sweet pea insists, prompting laughter from all of them.

she slips the rings on all her fingers, relishing in how much she’s missed this look. the only one she’s been wearing is her junior ring, but the rest of her assorted jewelry joins it as the boys have some conversation about spray paint. the ring with the pronounced star in the middle, the one that leaves a star mark in the person’s bruise if she punches hard enough. the one with “ANTOINETTE” printed on it in large letters, her grandmother’s name, always keeping her with toni. the simple silver band that was thick and heavy, weighing her finger down comfortably. a few quarter-machine ones that she wears just for the look, assorted mood rings. the final one is a bust of a wolf’s head, roaring fiercely at whatever toni’s hand is facing. that one leaves a nasty mark, and it reminds her of her grandfather, and her spirit animal.

she admires her silver-covered hands for a second before tuning back into the conversation, hearing fangs make a remark about a particular spray paint brand.

“are you guys seriously talking about the brands of spray paint we’re going to tag their shit with?”

they all seem to consider it for a second, shrugging. “well, we wanna use the best one, don’t we?” jughead mumbles, and she can’t tell if she wants to laugh or cry. “i’m surrounded by idiots.” she groans, letting her head fall against the table, “let’s go. bring all the brands, fuck it.”

-

the mission goes well for the first hour, honestly.

toni has missed this, missed the thrill of passerby’s watching what she’s doing, and the adrenaline coursing through her veins is electric. she practically jumps from wall to building to fence, tagging the two headed serpent she’s known how to draw since she could hold a pencil. she’s quiet on her feet, though, slipping into the shadows when the moment calls for it, her hair tucked into the two braids cheryl did for her under a black beanie.

she stops seeing fangs about 30 minutes in, but figures that he split off to cover more ground. it’s so dark, she can’t tell if she’s seeing him or imagining it at times, so she dismisses it. no time to be distracted.

she’s in the middle of her largest piece yet, just barely getting to paint the green S that starts off the snake over a large garage door when sweet pea’s voice tears through the dark street. “toni, run!”

her fucking blood runs cold.

she immediately takes off, by instinct, but lands directly in the hands of what feels like a large male, which she quickly realizes is sweet pea. jughead isn’t far behind, sprinting up with a knife drawn. no serpent stands alone bounces off the walls of the echo chamber in her brain.

“back off!” he yells, and it doesn’t occur to her who he’s talking to until she turns around. there’s nothing short of a horde of ghoulies behind them, indiscernible faces all morphing into one giant mob, literally holding torches. she manages to make eye contact with one of them in the fire-light, and vaguely registers the hum of a taser before she pulls her own knife out. it flicks open with a venomous hiss, and she pulls the meanest look she can muster.

“you tagged the wrong place.” one of the ghoulies that she recognizes as malachai sneers in her face, showing off a silver grill that covers his whole bottom row of teeth. turns out that he’s the one holding the taser, a little white gun-shaped one, and not a second after toni registers it, he aims it at her. “you’re outnumbered, three to twen-“

she moves with as much speed as she can muster, knocking it out of his hands and wrestling it away from him while simultaneously pinning him down with her little weight. she feels for the off switch blindly as the noises of a fight break out behind her, noises she knows all too well. she doesn’t manage to switch it off, though, so she tucks it safely in a random jacket pocket and focuses on making sure he can’t get up.

“you look pretty from down here.” he says smugly, not bothering to struggle underneath her. obviously, he underestimates her power, a grave mistake.

toni feels rather than hears his nose break, the crunch registering under her fist satisfyingly as she grabs a handful of his black locks and bangs his head down into the asphalt. the cold metal of her knife in her hand bites her heated skin, reminding her that she could definitely do something worse.

by the looks of it, he’s not getting up any time soon, so she switches her attention to the random thug whaling on sweet pea with a two by four. she pulls the taser out of her pocket, fumbling with it blindly for a second before aiming the gun-like device at a white shirt and pulling the trigger. she watches the two darts fly out of the tip as if in slow motion, lodging themselves firmly into skin and sees his entire body convulse as he falls to the pavement.

oh. so that’s what that feels like.

she’s so busy trying to find her next target that she forgets to watch her six, and her knees get kicked out from under her. she lies on her back for a second, vulnerable, and it’s fully taken advantage of- a hard rod, probably metal, comes crashing down on her stomach at full force. she gets hit in the face with it twice, albeit not as hard, as though the person delivering the blows didn’t want to mess up her features. by instinct, her hands fly up to cover her face, and the metal rod dings off of her rings nicely. she has the urge to smile, but instead gets up and spits the blood that’s rapidly collecting in her mouth out.

she can make out the fact that sweet pea is now hitting whoever her assailant was with their own rod, the grunts of effort leaving him almost animalistic. she fumbles blindly for the taser, finding it and aiming it clumsily at a dark-skinned boy who has his hands around fangs’ throat. the electricity stuns him, and every muscle in his body tenses up before he falls to the floor, twitching wildly and looking toni right in the eye.

eventually, she forces herself to look away, taking a quick head count of jughead, fangs, and sweet pea, before getting up and taking off with all the energy her small frame can muster. “come on!” she yells desperately, and they obey, slashing blindly at the rival gang’s flesh with switchblades now covered in blood. sweet pea curb stomps toni’s attacker one last time before following, the four of them panting wildly as they sprint into the woods.

“fuck!” sweet pea exclaims, nearly collapsing with exhaustion when they reach their bikes. they parked not far from the line where serpent meets ghoulie territory, a run-down motel.

“that fucking sucked.” jughead states, frustrated. he slumps against the cool metal of his motorcycle, letting out frustrated screams occasionally as they all collectively catch their breath. “toni, are you okay?” sweet pea inquires gently, walking over to her and cupping her face. the action reminds her of cheryl, and her dizzy mind reminds her that she should definitely go to thistlehouse.

“i’m good... i’m gonna go see cheryl.” she mutters, wiping the blood dripping from her split lip and mounting her bike.

"be careful." fangs says, deathly serious. "you want me to give you a ride?"

toni shakes her head simply, starting up the motorcycle as quietly as possible and tearing out of the parking lot.

-

she calls cheryl twice before the girl answers. "toni?" she says, clearly groggy, and toni's heart melts at how cute she is while simultaneously feeling guilty for seemingly waking her up.

"did i wake you up?" a somewhat affirmative grumble. "i’m sorry, baby. i’m at thistle house... do you think you could open the door for me?"

there’s a rustle on the other line, presumably the sounds of cheryl getting up, and a mumbled “something went wrong?”

toni gets a sudden, sharp pain in her side. “a lot of things went wrong.” she says into the phone before hanging up when she hears the locks being messed with on the other side of the door.

unable to hold herself any longer, her injuries catching up with her, she slumps on the doorframe and shuts her eyes tightly. the world starts spinning faster than it should.

the sound of the door opening, then a gasp. “toni...” cheryl whispers, helping her inside and sitting her down on the couch. she whimpers a little, her stomach still hurting from being hit with the pole.

something occurs to her, and she slowly lifts up her shirt to strip down to her sports bra. her arms practically scream for her to stop. as expected, her entire midsection is beginning to bruise shades of blue and purple. cheryl lays her back, kisses her forehead and mumbles “i’ll be back, baby.” before rushing off to the kitchen.

suddenly, toni’s feeing really sleepy. her eyes close without her meaning to, and her head lolls to the side. the last thing she sees is the red wallpaper of the blossom home before she stumbles off the edge.

-

“we’ve got to stop running into each other like this.” is the first thing toni hears when she comes to, cheryl straddling her waist and disinfecting the cuts on her knuckles from where her rings dug in with alcohol.

“ack.” is toni’s response. the chemical slips under her skin and nips at her nerves. the cuts aren’t deep, except for one on her ring finger where her junior ring goes. that one split open her skin to the dermis- she can see the white under it.

“stay still, mon tresour.” cheryl commands gently, pressing an alcohol pad more firmly to that one. toni hisses when cheryl applies some sort of bandaid that holds the two sides of the wound together.

“they got you good, huh?” she says wistfully, running her fingertips impossibly gently over toni’s stomach. she looks down at cheryl’s pale hands, smiling a little. “how do your hands naturally fall into playing position?” toni asks incredulously, and cheryl giggles. “too much practice, maybe?”

“when’s the recital?”

cheryl chews on her lip. “exactly two months.” “can’t wait.” toni says lightheartedly, trying to push herself up off the loveseat. every muscle in her body begs her to stop, but cheryl helps her up and holds her once she’s standing. “you split your lip.” cheryl’s thumb swipes over her bottom lip, blood dripping off her finger as she pulls it away. before she can stop herself, toni is pulling her into a kiss that cheryl surprisingly doesn’t flinch at.

“i didn’t peg you for the type with a blood kink.” she says between kisses, licking into cheryl’s pretty mouth over and over.

“i’m full of surprises.” cheryl retorts, trailing her fingers down toni’s arms to intertwine their fingers. “as bad as i want you right now... not when you’re like this.”

toni swears she falls in love right then and there, but she can’t say it. not yet.

instead, she drags cheryl upstairs after putting the first aid kit away and tries to kiss it into her lips. i love you. i love you so much that it hurts.

somehow, she feels like cheryl understands perfectly.


	11. rock that recital

cheryl starts smoking cigarettes. 

it starts when they’re sitting on the balcony of thistlehouse on a random weeknight, cheryl’s mother long gone with a client in greendale. “can you get me my pen?” toni frowns, “i wanna draw on your hand.”

cheryl obeys, coming back holding toni’s jansport. “i didn’t know that you smoked.” she says questioningly. clutched in her hand is a pack of marlboro reds. the parallel between the cigarettes and the girl amuses toni, but she keeps that to herself.

“i don’t. i used to, but i stopped. sweets didn’t. i got them for him earlier, since i thought i was sleeping there tonight.” she pauses. “here is better.”

cheryl smiles in that melty type of way. “you probably look hot smoking.” she confesses as she digs a black pilot pen out of one of the pockets of the bag. “jj used to smoke. he’d stand and blow the smoke out of the air vents, or the window, and i’d sit behind him and sketch his silhouette.”

toni doesn’t know what to say to that. she tries to be supportive, really, but sometimes cheryl just jumps from one topic to the next and toni is speechless. “what did he smoke?”

“camels. then marlboros.”

toni hums simply. below them, in the distance, the neon lights of pop’s glow proudly.

“can i try one?” cheryl asks hesitantly. the sound of one sliding out of the pack causes toni to turn around to a cancer stick being twirled between red nails.

“go for it. the lighter’s in there.”

a moment passes. “you wrote your name on your lighter? you fucking geek.” cheryl giggles.

toni scoffs, “everyone steals them! it’s, like, theft.” she watches cheryl fiddle with the zippo as the sounds of late-night riverdale drift ambiently through the air. cheryl’s left her phone on the nightstand that’s set out here, indubitably more expensive than jughead’s entire trailer, and toni picks it up and turns it over to see her case. tucked inside is a class E driver’s license.

cheryl’s smiling widely in her photo, hair falling over her shoulders in waves, perfect white teeth on full display. “aw.” toni croons, and cheryl slaps her shoulder lightly. “don’t look at that, i look disgusting.”

“you look sensational.” toni insists relentlessly.

“let’s see yours, romeo.”

toni giggles a little. cheryl’s eyes widen when she understands.

“you don’t have a driver’s license? toni, what the hell? you drive all the time!”

toni just shrugs, grabs a cigarette for herself and holds it between her teeth. the taste of tobacco brings her back to eighth grade, when her and fangs would smoke in the bathroom of southside and reminisce over superficial things, standing on toilets to blow smoke out of the windows. not that they would’ve gotten in trouble anyways. southside had way bigger things to deal with than two kids developing a nicotine addiction.

”i never had time to go get the damned thing. besides, those laws are, like, a suggestion anyways. i’ve never gotten pulled over.”

cheryl’s jaw clenches. “you need one.” she says with an air of finality, lighting her and toni’s cigarettes, “we’ll get it tonight.”

they smoke, and cheryl gets a little teary-eyed at the smell. “like jj.” she tells toni quietly, eyes glassy as she sucks deeply on the cigarette, like she’s trying to inhale as much of her brother as she can. toni holds her. they’re okay.

-

toni makes the mistake of not believing cheryl until she’s sat in front of her laptop, taking some online course to get her license. cheryl pays for all of it, coaching her through the hard questions, but she picks up pretty quickly due to her experience.

“so when you’re in the center lane, you can only turn left?”

cheryl nods, resting her cheek on her fist, causing her face to squish adorably. toni kisses her, just because she can.

and four hours later, she’s officially a licensed driver. “that’s it?”

“well, you have to take the driving exam, but you know how to do all that. then we just get the stupid piece of plastic from the dmv, and that’s it.”

toni breaks out in a stupidly wide grin. “why is everything so easy with you, pretty girl?” she asks happily, relishing in cheryl’s giggle like it’s light from the sun.

-

toni has a nightmare that night, the recurring one she always has.

she’s chained up to some sort of pole on the roof of a skyscraper, by her left hand. she’s drugged. how ironic, she always thinks as she wakes up, that she has nightmare about being off twice the amount of painkillers she usually takes.

sweet pea, or fangs, or jughead, or fp, or even malachai is standing next to her. they’re looking down on her, like she’s nothing. and they’re talking about something, just going on and on, but no matter how hard toni listens, she just can’t hear what they’re saying until they get to the last part of their twisted speech.

“doesn’t matter now. it’s already done.”

she’s heard those words in so many contexts. she’s heard it from fangs, turning in a chemistry quiz halfway complete with all the wrong answers. she’s said it to him after getting high and breaking a particularly long streak of sobriety.

tall boy said it when he was coming back up from the basement of the wyrm, two ghoulies chained up to the water heater that were now dead. she had been ordered to beat them to near-death before tall boy went down there and put a bullet between their eyes after he got the answers he needed. so toni had done it, she’d gone down there and kicked them a bowl of water and let them drink frantically like fucking dogs. while they were hunched over, she’d sent her foot flying into their stomach over and over again, til blood was flying out of their mouths and mixing with the water.

it sickened her. but she had to do it. she had cried to sweets and fangs about it later that night, and they listened and soothed and let her pour herself four shots of grey goose.

it didn’t matter by that time, anyways, because they were dead. it was already done. tall boy said it like he was saying the sky was blue. toni was only in 9th grade.

she has time to think about this in the dream, the clear blue sky filled with fluffy, white clouds drifting lazily with the breeze. then, she looks up again at her captor, and they laugh before shoving her small frame off the building with their foot, leaving her dangling by her arm for a second. it rips off. she falls and falls.

this time, it’s cheryl who pushes her.

“are you okay, mon tresor?” said girl drawls when she wakes up to toni shaking and crying. “come here, baby, you’re okay.”

toni shakes her head, curling up into cheryl’s inviting frame, intertwining her bare legs with cheryl’s sweatpants-covered ones.

“come to sleep with me, toni, you’re okay.” and the rumble in cheryl’s voice just lures her back into the embrace of sleep.

-

toni goes on more serpent missions, comes home to cheryl more and more. jughead doesn’t mind cheryl staying at the trailer on some nights, and cheryl seems to do her best not to step on any toes. she even plays call of duty with jughead when he asks, insisting that toni watches while cheryl “fucking destroys these bitches!”.

as for the serpents, they get back into the swing of things pretty easily. with toni at his side, jug is getting better and better at deciding what’s reasonable revenge on the ghoulies and what’s not.

they plant drugs. they crash cars. it’s dangerous and toxic and disgusting and scary and immoral and fucking addicting. toni is obsessed.

cheryl isn’t the biggest fan of it, but she understands that it’s part of the life and will happily stitch up toni’s skin where it splits, she’ll smoke with toni, she’ll kiss her over and over and assure her that she’s good and worthy and perfect and beautiful. when they’re at school, the two of them mutually agree that they don’t know each other. it stings a little, but it doesn’t feel like the punch in the stomach that it used to. besides, she knows the truth. she knows exactly how cheryl feels- she can see it in her eyes when she’s staring adoringly.

therefore, she doesn’t object to their silent agreement of a dirty little secret type relationship. she just sits on the piano doing math homework while cheryl practices til her fingers bleed.

toni goes on a month-long streak of being sober, only succumbing to an urge when she was laying on jughead’s bathroom floor at 3 am feeling like absolute death. ever since then, she hasn’t even wanted to get high. all she wants to do is be with cheryl, or trying to get their grades to be the best they can be, all the things she missed for the past years in a drug induced haze.

so overall, things are running smoothly. not perfect, but smoothly.

toni drags herself to the dmv eventually while cheryl has vixens practice, acing the driver’s test and standing against the height chart when they tell her to. she barely reaches 5’2. all she can think of is how funny cheryl would find that.

”look into the blue dot.” the instructor says, an old white man who’s clearly bored with his entire job. toni does, smiling with her mouth closed and looking into the camera with a daring expression when the flash goes off.

cheryl’s just floored with the picture.

”you look so fucking _good_!” she proclaims  when toni shows her, her smile dulling a little bit to a content grin, “i can’t believe you’re mine.”

-

valentine’s day rolls around at a breakneck pace. the school has a dance, but they skip it and opt to meet in cheryl’s car right after vixens practice. they already celebrated before school anyways, meeting in the car to exchange gifts and popping chocolates in their mouths as they waited for school to start.

“this is risky-“ cheryl reminds toni as soon as she climbs into the backseat, and toni scoffs. “you love it.” she mumbles, immediately straddling pale thighs and pushing her girl back into the car seat.

“fuck... feels good, toni.” the words fall from cheryl’s lips prettily as toni rubs her through her panties, red with some writing that toni can’t make out. “take me home.”

toni is in the driver’s seat faster than anything, practically speeding home. “want you so bad.” cheryl whispers in her ear over and over on the way there, tracing figure eights into toni’s inner thigh not covered by her skirt.

“fucking pianist fingers.” toni curses as she pulls into sunnyside, thanking gods that she doesn’t even believe in that no one is home at the moment. she barely lets cheryl step in before she’s pushing her against the front door, their height difference causing toni to have to lean up a bit.

“tiny.” cheryl mumbles humorously. toni ignores that, opting instead to take cheryl’s face between her hands softly. “you’re beautiful.” she mumbles, and she means it. “i...” cheryl trails off, playing the the fabric of toni’s skirt, “wanna do so much to you right now.”

and toni would be a liar if she said that she didn’t want cheryl to do everything on that list to her right now, but tonight isn’t about her, she’s decided. cheryl comes first. she pushes cheryl down onto the bed, unbuttoning her blouse as quickly as possible to reveal a crushed red velvet set of lingerie. “oh, fuck.” toni says earnestly, mouth suddenly very dry.

cheryl, in an uncharacteristic rush of confidence, grabs toni’s hand and leads it right where she wants it, the heat between her thighs. “yeah?” toni says awkwardly, a fumbling way of asking for permission that they both somehow understand perfectly. “yeah.” cheryl sighs as toni’s fingers slip just past her waistband and right to where she needs her. “shit.” she says quietly, head falling against the mattress. “don’t stop-“

tan fingers hook into the waistband, dragging it down cheryl’s creamy thighs and settling herself at the end of the bed. “is this okay?” she says quietly, voice rumbling low in her throat.

cheryl nods, but it’s not enough. it’s not what toni wants. “say it, cheryl.”

“toni... fuck, i want you, please eat me, i want your mou- oh, shit-“ she gasps as toni finally presses her tongue to cheryl’s most sacred area.

toni works cheryl’s clit and watches her body shake and work and writhe against her mouth until she reaches her cliff. “ah-“ she chokes out, mouth opening in a silent scream and eyes fluttering shut when she finally lets go. it’s poetic, almost, and addicting. toni makes her cum two more times after that, just because she’s greedy and wants to see her girl fall apart over and over again.

“i’m so glad we waited.” she says, voice thick with pleasure when cheryl’s hand finally settles between her legs. there’s drying tear tracks on cheryl’s cheeks, her hands shaky and unsure. her wide doe eyes trail up to toni’s, looking curious and nervous, and toni plays it up just a little to give her the boost of confidence that she knows cheryl needs.

ten minutes later, cheryl’s mumbling “cum for me, toni, i want it, do it, baby...” into her ear and toni’s whole fucking body jerks.

they fall asleep like that, naked and sweaty and all tangled up in the cheap sheets on toni’s bed.

-

they read macbeth in english. neither archie or reggie or any of the other guys in their class are particularly good readers, so toni tries out for the role of macbeth and snags it. archie high fives her. cheryl sends her a muted smile from across the room.

the role of lady macbeth is more wanted, for whatever reason, and cheryl has to try out against veronica and betty. she gets it, though, reading a page long soliloquy with ease and emotion. veronica stutters, and betty puts on this terrible scottish accent that just causes the class to melt into giggles, so toni isn’t really surprised.

“it’s so weird that you guys are playing a couple.” reggie says once the classroom quiets down. cheryl slips into her HBIC role easily, effectively shutting him down by snapping “and so what if we are? i’d rather be in a relationship with toni than with you, you oaf. you look like a gremlin.”

“that’s enough.” dullard says sternly, but even he’s masking a smile.

it’s noticeable that cheryl is thrown off the rest of the class, though. she’s anxious, fidgety and refuses to look at toni. 

to prove how proud of cheryl she is, toni pulls her into the bathroom as soon as the bell rings. “that was amazing, cher, but no one suspects a thing. i promise.”

cheryl just nods, pulls toni closer and kisses her with intention. while she’s distracted, toni pulls a ring off her finger and slips it onto cheryl’s. she picks the silver band that usually rests on her thumb, because cheryl’s fingers are just a little bit thicker than hers. it fits her perfectly.

a soft gasp escapes red lips, and toni’s heart jumps as she stares at cheryl’s evident joy. “for me?”

“all yours.” toni confirms, unable to keep the lovesick grin off her face.

-

cheryl’s recital really creeps up on them. the day of, cheryl facetimes toni while she’s getting ready, hands shaking profusely as she buttons up her dress. “you look beautiful.” toni says honestly, setting down her makeup brush and peering into the camera. “i’m about to leave.”

“me too.” cheryl says, voice quivering as she smooths down her white blouse one more time. she picks up the phone to hang up, bringing it right up by her eyes, and her eye bags are just in high definition. “we’re taking a nap after this, okay?” toni assures her.

cheryl smiles, eyes crinkling, and mumbles a quick goodbye with an exaggerated “muah!”

toni immediately pulls on her heels and yells out “fp, i’m ready!” he practically races out of his room, tossing her his keys. “let me know how she does, kid!” he says excitedly. he’s been cheryl’s biggest fan ever since she helped toni get her license. now he’s constantly sending her out to grab milk or toilet paper or a loaf of bread from this or that corner store, grateful he doesn’t have to run the errand himself.

“i will.” she promises on her way out the door. she practically speeds down the highway to the recital hall, a whole town over in centerville. she thinks she might drive past cheryl at one point, but she doesn’t dare to look for fear of her mother. when she gets there, she just sits in her assigned seat and fiddles with her pocketbook and her phone for the next thirty minutes, waiting for her girl.

as she’s fiddling with the edge of her (red, plaid, cheryl’s favorite) skirt, she notices a lipstick stain near the hem of it. it makes her heart flutter a little as she sinks into the velvet seat.

every seat in the house is packed, and the lights haven’t even gone down yet, so toni decides to pamper cheryl a little bit. she runs out to the lobby, grabbing a redbull from the concessions stand and a few roses before sneaking backstage.

cheryl’s pacing back and forth when she gets there, picking at her hands and humming her music. “cher? i know i’m not supposed to be back here, but-“

a head of red hair whips around, facing toni with an expression of wonder. “hi, toni.” she says, relieved but clearly preoccupied as she walks towards the curtain.

“these are for you. for luck.” she says, now feeling sort of dorky. cheryl gratefully accepts them, though, chugging the whole redbull and kissing toni with sugary lips afterwards. “fuck, you’re a lifesaver, baby. i was up all ni- did you see my mother out there?”

“no, i-“

“she said she’d be here.” cheryl frowns, peeking through the thick curtains yet again.

“then i’m sure she will!” toni attempts to comfort. cheryl just scoffs and shakes her head. “well... will she?”

“arce, brianna to the stage, please. arce, brianna to stage.”

“shit. i gotta get back to my seat. good luck, baby, you’re gonna do amazing.”

cheryl kisses her once, twice, three times before letting toni scamper back down the stairs and into her seat. once she’s there, watching arce, brianna float through a sonata, the image of cheryl’s eye bags cuts through her mind.

has cheryl always looked like that? did she always cut herself off in the middle of a sentence like that? she looks crazed, probably the result of a long night of practicing, if the eye bags and irritated fingers are anything to go by. toni honestly doesn’t know how she does it. she’d go crazy listening to the same piece over and over again... she’d go crazy if she went through a lot of the shit cheryl went through.

she’s lost in her thoughts for the next four performances. “blossom, cheryl.” comes over the loudspeaker, and suddenly her heart is pounding.

god, please let her do good.

cheryl struts onstage with her usual swagger, though even from her seat in the orchestra, toni can see the trembling of her fingers. a shiny silver ring twinkles on her finger.

“cheryl blossom.” she states when she sits down, brushing her hair over her shoulders. there’s a quiver in her voice. “this i-is invention, in c.”

she starts. at first, she’s delicately pressing the keys, pretty music twinkling out of the instrument. a soft smile etches itself on her face before the first fast part, and toni’s so close that she can see the way her fingers trip over each other and she plays a few sour notes.

cheryl bites the inside of her cheek, pauses for a second and scans the audience before starting again. she gets further this time, getting through the first few measures.

disaster. she plays on a whole different octave, and the mistake is blaringly obvious.

this visibly upsets her, and her eyebrows furrow. toni can practically see the tears forming in her eyes, and she wants nothing more than to go up there and help her, save her, wrap her up in her arms and kiss her until she doesn’t even remember this stupid fucking recital. her frantic brown eyes scan the audience from her place onstage, and she makes eye contact with toni.

one more try. cheryl starts a little slower this time, but speeds up dramatically when she hears the audience murmur. toni can’t make out what anyone around her is saying, but it makes her mad. cheryl just keeps speeding up, nerves getting to her as she strikes an incredibly sour chord.

“fuck!” cheryl mumbles quietly, growling a little. “fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” her pale hands slam down on the piano, hard, in unison with her frustrated cursing. angry notes come flying out of the loudspeaker. the audience suddenly gets a little louder at that, wondering when the judges are going to intervene, but they seem just as interested as everyone else.

toni’s on the edge of her seat, eyes wide, transfixed by the way cheryl’s just falling apart onstage right now and throwing this opportunity away. she might just be able to hear her heart break if the people around her would just shut UP-

“i’m sorry!” cheryl says loudly, clearly breaking down. she’s smiling, but it’s not reaching her eyes. “i just...”

she’s searching for something to say, but it’s not there. “the thing is, i...”

she locks eyes with toni. toni doesn’t even try to fix the concerned look on her face, because cheryl needs to know that she has to try to fix this. she can’t just throw this away. not after she’s worked so hard.

the silhouette of the judges shift uncomfortably in their seats, and toni can sense that they’re not sure what she’s supposed to do.

cheryl chuckles a little, lowly, and the tension in the recital hall is thick. “you know what the problem with... _classical_ is? it’s so rigid! and structured! you have to play the notes on the page! there’s no room for... _IMPROVISATION_!” she shouts the last word hysterically, and toni has just enough time to mumble “oh no.” before cheryl’s hands are just flying into a solo for the ages.

it’s a take on invention in c, the root notes are still there, and she seems to be focusing enough to play the fast parts now. rumbling, intense, broody low notes are added, her fingers moving at a breakneck pace as her whole face contorts in concentration.

eventually, it comes to a stop after about 2 minutes. one of the judges says “okay, we’ve seen enough.” and cheryl is taken out of her world. she visibly crumbles when she realizes what she’s done.

she looks small, up on that stage all alone, sitting at that grand piano. her hands fold in her lap and she frantically looks through the audience for toni, who just can’t watch this anymore.

she races up there, all thoughts of whether this is allowed quickly leaving her mind as cheryl buries her face in her hands.

she runs up the stairs to the stage quickly, heels clicking loudly as she tries to get to cheryl as fast as possible. “cheryl.” she says softly, grabbing her pale shoulders and brushing her fiery hair behind her ear. “should we go?”

cheryl rubs her hands over her face, taking one last look at the piano and the audience. “yes.” she says, her quiet, broken voice echoing through the auditorium.

toni tries to pull her up, but cheryl hesitates, fingers still reaching for the keys. the auditorium is dead silent.

cheryl gives in, and they go.


	12. let me know you again

the ride home is palpably awkward. cheryl hasn’t stopped sobbing since they got in the car, toni’s motorcycle being driven home by fangs (bless that boy. always ready at the drop of a hat.) way ahead of them.

“cheryl, baby, it’s okay. it’s just one audition. there’s gonna be more, obviously.”

cheryl sniffs loudly, tucking her legs up onto the seat so she can rest her chin on her knees, “colleges talk, toni. especially yale. i’m gonna be labeled as the girl who went crazy on invention in c.” she groans at her own words, “i’m such an idiot. i should’ve slept last night. that’s why i messed it up.”

“you were under stress, cher! and who could blame you? it’s intense.”

“why wasn’t my mom there, toni?”

toni takes her eyes off the road for a second to glance at cheryl and almost wished she hadn’t. “god, i don’t know. was that what was throwing you off?”

“that and, like, a million other things.” cheryl sighs, “all that practice for nothing.”

“hey. you met me through those practices.” toni says, mock offended, but cheryl barely manages a smile before breaking down again. they fly down the highway for a few more minutes, eventually passing the welcome to riverdale! sign. "you called your mom?" toni inquires.

"straight to voicemail." cheryl mumbles defeatedly, moving to press her palms over her eyes. "i can't stand her."

"me either." toni mumbles, not expecting cheryl to hear, but she does and sends toni a weak smile. "do you wanna stay the night?"

"yeah, i might as well, she’s probably locked me out already if she isn’t answering her phone... did you ever get your shower working?"

toni nods, laughing a little, "sweet pea and fangs spent all of one weekend tearing out the walls of the trailer and taking apart the whole water system, dropping screwdrivers on each other's heads.." she waves a hand dramatically as cheryl laughs, "but it's fixed. boiling hot water."

"great. love that for me."

another silence falls over them. toni feels the need to fill it, but cheryl does it for her. 

"i can't believe i fucked that up."

toni just shrugs, "such is life, babe. que sera, sera."

cheryl sighs, and it fills toni with so much sadness. she feels for cheryl, she really does. and there's no denying how important that audition was, but theres no use in worrying. what's done is done.

they pull up to the trailer, and as soon as they come inside, fp pops out of the room. toni internally groans. "hey, how did she- oh, hey, blossom." his expression visibly softens upon seeing the tears still streaming down cheryl's cheeks."oh, man. it went like that?"

toni sends him a helpless look, raising one shoulder in a shrug. "it's okay, kid..." he wraps cheryl in a hug that is evidently needed, because she stops crying significantly fast. there's no denying the healing power of fp's hugs. "it is what it is. you'll get through this. you've gone through hell in a hand basket already-" cheryl lets out the most pitiful little laugh, and toni's heart breaks for the nth time this evening, "it'll be okay."

jughead comes out of his room at the commotion, evidently woken up from a sleep. "everything okay?" he grumbles, squinting at the scene playing out in front of him and pushing hair out of his eyes as he stretches.

"yeah," cheryl says dismissively, "you can go back to sleep. i just bombed an audition for yale, thats all."

his eyes widen, clearly feeling the severity of that, but toni elbows him before cheryl can see his expression. she doesn't need any reminders of how serious this is. "sorry about that, cheryl." he says awkwardly, ever the social butterfly, "see you in the morning." he stands there for a moment, looking like he wants to say something more, before retreating back into his room. fp eyes cheryl one last time as well before telling her, "you wake me up if you need anything." and leaving the two of them alone to go to the spare room.

toni doesn't realize how tired cheryl is until she's stumbling into the spare room, not even wearing her heels anymore. she collapses on the bed as soon as she gets close enough, sniffling as she runs her hands through her hair to get it out of her face.

"toni?"

"yeah?"

"could you, um..." she picks at a loose thread on her dress, "do you think you could take my makeup off?" toni barely lets her finish her sentence before she's rushing into the bathroom with a quick "sure, babe."

cheryl can barely keep her eyes open as toni runs a makeup wipe over her face softly. "stay awake for a little bit longer, babe," toni mumbles, "I need to get you in pajamas." toni can _feel_ how exhausted she is, the way she looks to be having trouble holding her head up and the slump of her back is a dead giveaway.

her head lolls forward, "I'm sorry, toni... you always have to come to my rescue, you deserve a better girlfriend..."

 _girlfriend._ toni's heart jumps. 

"none of that. you're a perfect girlfriend, cher. i know how lucky i am to have the smartest, sweetest girl in riverdale."

"ditto." cheryl yawns and picks up her arms tiredly to let toni slip her out of her dress.

"how long has it been since you slept?" toni asks, partly only to keep her awake because its getting hard to pull this shirt on her with how heavy her limbs are getting. 

"god, i don't even... i haven't since... since saturday night? i was up for almost all of yesterday practicing, didn't sleep all night and now it's monday night. right?"

"I think you should skip tomorrow."

"always trying to ruin my perfect attendance." cheryl grumbles, lips barely parting as she speaks. toni's eyes scan her face, take in every detail, the freckles ever-so-lightly dusted across her nose and how long her eyelashes are.

she grows quiet after that, clearly deep in thought. "it’s fine, i’ll just drink a red bull." she mumbles. "i’m, uh..."she never finishes her statement, slumping against toni and falling asleep. toni smiles, casts a glance at the clock- jesus, 11 already?- and does the math in her head. cheryl will get 9 hours of sleep if toni wakes her up just a little bit later. she gets up, tucks cheryl in, changes and lays out an outfit for both of them before finally, finally letting herself fall asleep.

-

toni wakes up when the alarm clock reads "3:18" in its bright red, glowing umbers, and immediately tries to bury her face back into cheryl's shoulder to go back to sleep. the realization hits her before she can stop it though, and she sighs deeply. her throat is unnervingly dry, and she'll never be able to go back to sleep now that she's noticed it.

rolling her eyes at the tendencies of her own body, she quietly gets up and over cheryl, careful not to wake her as she makes her escape. she does stop for a second, though, to stare at the sleeping beauty in her bed, running her hand through the knots in her hair a few times. cheryl looks younger when she sleeps. her forehead, which is usually wrinkled with worry, smooths out into porcelain and makes the scar near her eyebrow ever more obvious. 

toni finds herself smiling despite herself, butterflies fluttering in her chest and the cold of the tile seeping through her socks. she lingers for another moment before padding out of the room silently and making her way into the living room of the trailer. the warm, amber light of the lamp is officially retired of the night, replacing everything with an eerie, pale blue glow from the moonlight outside.

the cold and the lighting and the way nothing is making a sound remind her of blue xanax bars and late night walks with fangs and sweet pea last summer, experimenting with different things and it always feeling like being submerged in a swimming pool. she feels like a ghost as she roams the living room, trailing her fingers across the walls as she moves through the house.

she makes her way into the kitchen, cracking open a cabinet to retrieve a mug that has a "back to the future" design on it. probably jughead's, she thinks with a small smile as she fills it up with cold water from the tap.

her hands shake, for some reason, as she leans against the counter and sips it, staring emptily at the fridge.

cold. blue. silence. xanax. the thoughts flash through her mind like one of those toys you look through and click through the photos. unsurprisingly, she finds herself longing for that experience again, wanting to sit at the bottom of the swimming pool of her psyche and sink for a little while. everything is so loud, now. not even the complete silence that the house is currently blanketed in can make her feel like a xanax did.

and now that she's thinking about it, it's tugging at her. the withdrawal is kicking in. 

goddamn, she shouldn't have gotten up, she thinks as she bites her lip and shuts her eyes as tight as she can to try and block out the disgusting feelings washing over her, feelings of want and longing, and need.

as if on autopilot, she drains the rest of her water and rinses the mug, drying it and putting it back in the cabinet before slipping into the bathroom and standing carefully on the toilet seat. her hands are really shaking now, and her heart pounds at the fragile cage of her ribs as she moves the roof tile to receive her salvation.

her hand curls around the cylindrical shape, pulling it out of its hiding place and bringing it into the light.

faded label. capsules of release inside. an unknown name on the label. prescribed three times a day.

she shouldn't be doing this. 

the sound of cheryl saying "proud of you, toni" sinks into her brain, and she shakes her head a little as she pops open the cap (not as easily as she'd like to, due to the shakiness of her hands) and shakes her mistake into the palm of her hand. the xanax stares back at her calmly, daring her. 

it's just one little mistake, she convinces herself, dropping her one little mistake into her mouth and onto her tongue, swallowing it roughly and bracing herself against the sink. she regrets it as soon as it's down her throat. just not enough to stop. 

the world turns upside down, then right side up again, and she realizes that she shouldn't have taken this on an empty stomach. she shouldn't have taken this at all, actually, but she slips the bottle back into the ceiling where it belongs and puts the roof tile back.

 _out of sight, out of mind,_ she reminds herself, going to click the bathroom light off before realizing she never turned it on. wow, she's out of it, she realizes, brushing her hand against her face and pushing her hair out of the way, rubbing her eye as she slips back into the doorway of the guest room. 

cheryl has shifted, laying on her side now, facing toni. it takes her a second to realize that cheryl's eyes are open.

"toni?"

_fuck._

"yeah?"

"what did you just do?"

"just, like... got up and got water." she shrugs, "that's all, you can go back to sleep."

as she steps closer to cheryl, she can see her eyes watering. "you're lying." cheryl says quietly, voice breaking.

toni's throat closes on itself as she tries to answer cheryl, slumping against the doorframe hard, "cheryl, i... i fucked up," she says around a painful lump in her throat, "the..." a sudden urge to run to the bathroom and puke overwhelms her, and she quickly decides that if she decided to go get her secret stash of pills from the bathroom, she can go force the medicine back up, as well.

she hears cheryl call her name as she rushes to the bathroom, emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet and holding her own hair back. when she finishes gagging, and flushes the mess down, she closes the toilet lid and stands on it, grabbing the little orange bottle and emptying the contents of that into the water as well, eyes welling with tears as the pills drop down into the water. she flushes the toilet once more, and just like that, her whole supply is gone forever.

she looks up, and sees cheryl holding her toothbrush out with a healthy amount of toothpaste on it.

"sorry." toni mumbles as she almost violently brushes her teeth, staring at herself in the mirror. cheryl's doing the same thing, but then she's pressing a kiss to toni's bare shoulder and wrapping an arm around her waist.

"we both fucked up tonight. don't worry. we're even." she almost-whispers, even though there's no reason to. 

toni finishes, wiping her mouth and taking cheryl's hand, allowing herself to be led back to bed.

sleep falls upon her easily, thank god. she's tumbling into it before she can stop herself. the last thing she registers is cheryl's lips on her forehead.

-

unsurprisingly, they both sleep right through the alarm and wake to jughead shaking the mattress at the foot of the bed, telling them that it's already seven and they're going to be late. once toni rubs the sleep out of her eyes, she realizes that in the revealing view of the morning light, it's better for cheryl to stay home today. infinitely better. 

they share a glance at the sleeping girl laying next to toni, who is undoubtedly deep in an rem cycle, mouth hanging open slightly and hair stuck to her face at odd angles. jughead giggles a little, and toni goes to reprimand him before she realizes that he's laughing with her, not at her. 

"she's out like a light. sure you wanna wake her?" he says, standing back and running his hands through his hair.

"cher," toni says, a little too loud, "cheryl. are you sure you wanna go to school today?"

cheryl blinks her eyes open, squinting at toni. "we're staying home, i can't... i'll figure out what to tell my mom later."

"rough night?" jughead asks, apologetic look on his face, even though he had nothing to do with it.

"you have no idea." toni tells him exasperatedly, running a hand through cheryl's hair, "we'll pass on today."

"okay, well, the house is all yours. dad's driving to greendale today to drop something off, i'll be home at four."

"four?"

"date with betty."

"lucky you." toni says, and they smile at each other, sitting in the moment for a second before reality comes rushing back. "have fun," he jokes, patting the bed and leaving the room. cheryl doesn't speak until the front door slams.

"my mom is probably ready to kill me." she says, muffled by her pillow. 

"shit," toni hisses, "I completely forgot about that. do you need to go?"

cheryl groans, "probably," before turning so her face isn't buried in the pillow anymore and toni can look at her. her eye bags are killer. "honestly, i'm a little scared to go home. i don't know what she'll do."

"is there any way you could get around it?"

cheryl considers this for a moment, picking at the chapped skin of her lips in thought. "yes... yeah, i think i'll get veronica to cover for me. she'll be fine with it, she mentioned the other day she'd cover for me if i was ever in trouble after we had to have dinner with our families."

"dinner with the blossoms and the lodges? sounds like a nightmare." toni mumbles, laying back down and pulling cheryl closer.

"oh, it was. but this is anything, so, i'll tell her what happened and just leave out the parts about you. do you want to talk about last night?"

"do you?" toni asks quickly. it's a low blow, sure, but the last thing she needs right now is to think about that. she might puke again, no fingers needed.

cheryl just laughs instead of being hurt like toni thought she would. "you're good?"

"yeah," toni says quietly, trailing a finger along cheryl's jaw, "just a stupid relapse. _definitely_ the last one, my head is pounding."

"well, as long as you know it was stupid." 

they kiss. the world revolves around them for a second. 

all good things must come to an end, toni muses as cheryl gets up and dressed, grabbing her stuff and leaving, but not before toni makes her promise she'll catch up on her sleep.

"text me if you need anything." cheryl says, pressing a kiss (or two, or three) to toni's lips before she's grabbing her face and adding "seriously. anything."

"ditto." toni tells her, and cheryl is out the door, leaving no evidence that she was there in the first place except for her smell on toni's sheets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaand we're back ! sometimes you just have to watch the premiere episode of euphoria to get back into the groove of writing druggie characters LMAO this will be updated more regularly now. i needed a break from writing for a while, but figured it was fine because some good ass fics came around while i was gone  
> this is mostly just a filler chapter to set up for the next plotline


	13. come over when you're sober pt 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha chapter 13.. unlucky number.. can't wait  
> this chapter is fucking colossal, just to make up for the lack of updates . don’t kill me lol

in the stillness of the student lounge the following tuesday, another memory surfaces. it's creeping up on toni's brain before she can stop it, and before she knows it, she's being taken back to the floor of fangs' trailer, the July heat seeping in through a large window in his room. or, what they call his room. it's more of a corner, sectioned off by three walls and a curtain. 

she was on the floor, choking and gasping and trying to take some fraction of a breath of air into her lungs as she choked on her own spit and her airway closed rapidly. everything in her body was screaming at her, begging her to just turn the fuck over so she could get a breath in, but her body just wasn’t cooperating with her. her head slumped to the side, just enough for her to look down her arm and see her fingers twitching like something out of a horror movie. the sight scared her, and she whimpered helplessly as her hips jumped up irregularly, partly convulsions and partly her trying to get the fuck up.

her vision eventually started to blur, eyes rolling back into her head before she could possibly stop them, but she heard fangs a million miles away calling her name. she closed her eyes for a second, but when they opened back up, fangs was right in front of her, trying to keep her awake. 

"toni? toni! shit!" he had said, panicked as he shoved her onto her side. from there, she was able to sink back onto her hands and knees and puke up every vile thing she'd done in the past six hours on their sadness-fueled drug marathon- around half of a cart of fruit flavored cannabis oil, a few gulps of some deceptively sickly-sweet caramel flavored crown royal, and more than a few pills...

she's in the middle of another memory, fangs on the phone with sweet pea, still obviously inebriated as hell and trying to describe the situation and get first aid advice, when she hears a noise from across the student lounge. she snaps out of her spaced-out state, glancing at the clock to realize twenty minutes have passed- what the fuck- and turns to see kevin keller ripping a sheet of tissue paper in half. he smiles at her, beckoning her over, and she sends as much of a smile as she can muster back to him before getting up and walking over to him. 

as she gets closer, she realizes that there's an obnoxious amount of pastel colored tissue paper spread out across one of the long tables in  the study hall part of the student lounge. "what's all this?" she inquires, observing a little more to find various pairs of scissors and twine. 

"it's for the spring formal dance!" kevin tells her excitedly, and she smiles despite herself because wow, it must be nice to get that excited over a dance. veronica, another overly spirited member of the student event planning committee, emerges in the door way with a few more rolls of tissue paper. "oh, hey, toni. you wanna help?"

"the theme is, a nighttime stroll in the garden," kevin says dreamily, "and what says that better than tissue paper flowers?"

"a ton of them." toni chuckles, gesturing to the obscene amount of paper they've got. "if you guys need help, i don't have anything else to do this period." 

"where's cheryl? you two have been getting close, lately, it seems." kevin notes, "and we could use any extra hands we can get."

okay, that one catches her way off guard. since when does kevin keller pay attention? and since when did her and cheryl start being so obvious? "uh, i-" she stutters out, running a hand through her hair, "we're really not-"

"actually, she's working on something with the vixens right now for the pep rally, for the last softball game of the season." veronica supplies her, thankfully. she doesn't look at toni or kevin as she says it, just busies herself organizing the rolls of paper into their respective colors. 

"and we really aren't close." toni adds, that diversion giving her enough time to come up with a lie, "she's actually tutoring me, since i'm taking the sat in the summer."

kevin nods, and toni feels silly for being so worried once he just smiles and picks up a roll of tissue paper. "fair enough," he says, "we'll all just have to work on overdrive, then."

"kevin," veronica scolds him lightly, laughing a bit, "cut the theatrics, the dance isn't for another three weeks! let me show you how to make a flower, toni. don't worry, it's not as rough as kevin is making it seem."

toni finds herself laughing as well, letting veronica guide her hands into making a flower that actually looks kind of okay. "when is this thing, anyways?"

"oh, april 16th. it's free, so, pretty much everyone comes. if you want, i could get your ticket now, we just got them in." veronica mentions casually.

"uh, yeah, that would be great," and she catches herself as veronica is grabbing the little white box full of tickets, "actually, could i get two?"

"oh, does toni topaz have a secret beau that we don't know about?" kevin jokes, wiggling his hips in a way that's so dorky it's comical. veronica practically giggles at that, handing toni two tickets printed on deep blue cardstock.

they work comfortably for the next hour, toni stretched out on a large chair and pumping out decorations like no one's business, laughing and joking with her two newfound friends. 

it's a welcome distraction. and a healthy one. toni counts it as progress.

-

cheryl’s getting braver. 

she’s actually been kind of, sort of, maybe interacting with toni at school. 

the thought amazes toni, simply because cheryl has so much to lose but still manages to risk it all just for her. every wink, touch, gaze, brush, makes her heart flutter wildly and gives her a high that even acid would be jealous of. 

as of right now, cheryl’s on her way across the cafeteria, headed straight for toni. at first, she’s surprised, but she realizes cheryl’s coming over here because fangs and sweets aren’t sitting with her at the moment. a pale hand sweeps across the table as she passes, leaving a small green corner of paper peeking out at her playfully from under her lunch tray. she has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep the act up until cheryl walks far enough away, just to save herself from prying eyes. 

a five dollar bill, folded up neatly with a sticky note in the middle that says “don’t spend it all in one place, baby <3 xo”

when she looks back up, cheryl’s smiling at her and points subtly behind toni. when she turns, she’s greeted with the sight of the cookie stand that most clubs set up during lunch as a fundraiser. 

those fucking addictive, premade cookies. 

cheryl knew toni loved them. 

before she can stop herself, she’s turning back with a wide grin, and she can practically feel herself blushing like some kind of schoolgirl. she quickly pulls her phone from her back pocket and unlocks it, sending a quick text to her girl:

_ be straight with me _

_ is this “my girlfriend is a serpent and probably can’t afford her own cookies” money, or is this “i’m giving my girlfriend cookie money because i love her” money? _

_ It’s “thank you for being so good to me, Toni, buy yourself some cookies” money.  _

when she looks up to smile at cheryl once more, she actually sees something else there too- 

reggie mantle, sweet pea and fangs. 

she feels her eyebrows furrow as she watches them converse, not looking deathly serious but not playing around either. her eyes drift down to reggie’s huge hands as he shakes sweet pea’s, and she sees green somewhere in there. 

money? weed? who knows. 

reggie nods at him once, leaving the cafeteria in the most conspicuous way possible, but sweets and fangs are good at this. they weave their way back to the table, slick as ever. 

“someone wanna explain to me what just happened?” toni says as they sit down, lowering her voice a little and leaning in to be closer to both of them. they both shrug, almost simultaneously. 

“nothing-“ sweet pea shrugs it off casually. 

“he just wan-“ fangs starts explaining. 

they look at each other, both seemingly pissed off that the other started talking and said something contradictory. 

“he wanted...?” she starts, waiting for one of them to tell her the truth. 

“some party drugs, he was talking about some grimy-ass party he’s gonna have.”

she scans his face for a second, but it looks like he’s being sincere, so she lets it go. 

“party? are we gonna crash it?”

fangs grimaces at that, hissing in a breath as he pokes at the mashed potatoes on his tray. 

“what? you think i can’t handle it?” suddenly, she feels offended, like they’re underestimating her capacity to stay sober. admittedly, it’s been hard, and ever since the fiasco at the club, she hadn’t gone out with fangs for fear of temptation. still, though, the party scenes fangs went to were more adult clubs with adult drugs, not some juvenile kegger house party thrown by the quarterback. 

“it’s just... you’ve been doing so good.” fangs says, “we don’t want to endanger that by, like, putting you in that environment, and shit... you know?” he twists a piece of hair around his finger, peering at her to judge her reaction. 

“is cheryl going?” sweet pea says, probably just to change the subject. 

“i don’t know...” toni says wistfully, imagining how cheryl would even act at a party. “i’ll ask her. whatever, i don’t really even want to go anyways.” her eyes drift over to said girl, who’s poking at a salad and laughing gracefully with veronica, betty, a few vixens, and archie. 

“yeah. us neither.” fangs chuckles, “reggie’s parties always get fuckin’ busted anyways. we’re just supplying, not putting ourselves in danger.”

she itches to correct him on his grammar, just another trait picked up from cheryl. 

“okay. whatever. i’m getting cookies.”

-

“let me ask you something.” toni starts, somewhat awkwardly, when she meets cheryl in her car after school. 

“yeah?” her girl responds, smiling at toni fondly as she clambers into the front seat. 

once toni sits, she realizes she has no idea how to word her question, but figured she’ll make it up as she goes. 

“so... i don’t know if you know, but reggie’s having a party.”

cheryl nods, pouting a little and reaching for toni’s hand, “yeah, pretty much all the vixens are going. why?”

“are you?”

“maybe, i don’t know.” cheryl smiles a little, raises her eyebrows in a way that’s unfairly hot, “maybe i’ll go if you’re there, and we can hook up in a broom closet.”

toni practically beams, because one, the prospect of hooking up with cheryl just because makes her happy. but two, cheryl is coming to terms with her sexuality, getting so much bolder and more vocal. a month or two ago, she wouldn’t have dared even suggest that.  but here she is, hypothesizing about semi-public high school party sex. 

she laughs, and runs a hand through cheryl’s hair softly. “you look pretty today.”

cheryl relaxes into the touch, pressing her head into toni’s hand lightly. “do you want me to go? to the party?”

oh right, the party. “uh... the thing is, the boys said he was asking them about party drugs. and, you know, i just, like, don’t want you in that environment if the cops show up. plus, i’m not going either, fangs says he doesn’t want to... ruin my progress.”

“you’ve been doing so well,” cheryl agrees, “okay, i won’t go then. we can skip it.”

“maybe you can come over that night?”

“yeah, we’ll have our own party.” cheryl reaches for the gear shift, smirking a little at toni that suggests more than she’s letting on as she revs up the engine and they pull out of the school parking lot.  as cheryl moves, adjusting her rear view mirror, the sleeve of her cropped polo shirt rides up, revealing discoloration on her arm that’s far from ordinary. it catches toni’s eye, and suddenly she can’t look away.  it’s a pale green color, still spotted by purple. her limited first aid knowledge yields her that the bruise is about a week old, maybe a little less than that. 

oh, she knows what this is. fire sparks in her belly as she considers this, considers the fact that this is most likely cheryl’s witch of a mother laying her wretched hands on her girlfriend. she knows _exactly_ what this is, but is she bold enough to ask?

buildings and streetlights whizz by them familiarly on the ride home they've taken countless times over the past few months.

“how’s your mom?” toni asks quietly, her nerves getting the best of her and affecting her voice.

the soft whirring of the air conditioning fills the space between them.  so much time passes that toni wonders if cheryl even heard her. her eyes stay trained on the road, hands at ten and two, body language stiff as ever. 

nothing moves, and toni’s about to ask again when one single tear goes rolling down cheryl’s cheek. 

that’s all the answer she needs. 

of course her mother was mad that cheryl blew the audition. of _course._

“oh, cher.” she says softly, and cheryl’s pulling over before she can stop herself, letting toni envelope her in a hug and crying into her shoulder. 

she doesn’t say anything, but toni figures that she really doesn’t need to. 

“it’s okay, baby, i’m here... you’re okay,” toni cards a hand through her hair, kisses her forehead, lets cheryl grip her waist so hard it almost hurts. 

“i’m okay.” cheryl repeats, actually looking like she believes it a little as she straightens herself out and sits up. “it’s just hard- you know. but it’s nothing i can’t take.”

her tough girl. 

toni nods, feeling so much pride and love and admiration that she doesn’t even know what to do with all of it. like any teenager, though, she knows one way to convey all her emotions. 

“we should go back to jug’s trailer.” toni says softly, leaning forward to kiss cheryl’s neck lightly. “i wanna make you feel better.”

cheryl laughs lowly, turns the car on again, lets the engine rumble to life as she pulls back onto the road. “how are you gonna go about that?”

“i don’t know, you gotta get back to the trailer and find out.”

cheryl smiles, like she does, and toni just feels so much it's intoxicating. they practically speed home, and when they get there, cheryl lets toni walk her back into the room and onto the mattress. 

this mattress that she hated so much, this mattress that she hid her pills under. this mattress that she passed out on multiple times. the only solid object in her spinning world of a drug induced haze. 

she feels... free from all of that now, pondering her near recovery as she kisses down cheryl’s neck and her fingers work the buttons on her collar. 

she wants to get better. she needs to get better. not really for herself, but for the people around her. 

there’s the catch, she thinks conclusively as she drags cheryl’s top off and decides to focus on the girl in front of her. 

“you’re beautiful.” she breathes, dragging her fingertips down cheryl’s body. her pale skin on the right side is discolored, and toni can clearly see that the bruises look like hand marks. “cheryl, i...”

i love you. i love you. i love you. 

it’s too soon. 

cheryl grabs toni’s hand, brings it up to her mouth and kisses her knuckles. 

“me too.” she says quietly, and the atmosphere is so intimate it makes toni want to cry. she touches cheryl lightly, making a point to kiss the borders of every bruise, lets cheryl thread her fingers through pink hair and doesn’t waste any time in lowering herself down to her knees at the foot of the bed. 

the cold tile burns like ice on her knees, and when she gets up after cheryl's finished, she can tell she’ll have bruises. 

strangely, she doesn’t care as cheryl tugs her back onto the bed, giggling and insisting that it’s “her turn.”

-

“i want to get better for you.” toni blurts out in the afterglow.  cheryl hums, and toni wishes she could see her face from the place that her head has on cheryl’s shoulder right now. 

“i want to get better for you too,” cheryl mumbles, clearly spent from their after school activities. “it’s scary.”

“yeah,” toni says simply. “guess you’re stuck with me.”

cheryl laughs, kisses her girl’s forehead. “you’re stuck with me too.”

mutually assured destruction. 

toni decides not to linger on it as she tumbles into sleep.

-

the day of the party rolls around, as they do. nothing is off, nothing really sets toni on edge- her anxiety, for once, has quieted. she walks into the kitchen that morning to see jughead typing rapidly on a laptop, with a carton of moose tracks ice cream open next to him. he hardly even notices her as she walks around him.

"good morning, jug." she greets him amiably, going to the sink to wash the few dishes in there from dinner last night. her own contribution to the family life of the jones's, whatever she can do to make herself useful.

"morning," he grumbles, tapping on the touchpad a few times, "fuck, I'll never finish this manuscript."

"oh, you will. which one is that?"

"the original story, the murder mystery-"

"the one set in space?"

"no, the one set in 80's suburbia." he pauses. "maybe i write too many murder mysteries."

toni laughs at his self awareness, and they sit in comfortable silence as she scrubs and he types. "you've looked a lot better lately." he says when she comes over to the table to grab the already melted ice cream off of it."have I?" she says curiously. honestly, she doesn't feel any different.

"you look... alive. like you're actually present." he muses, getting up to help her cook breakfast. she knows that he knows, but they don't say anything about it. they just work around each other, cracking eggs and laying bacon, a mutual, quiet understanding of each other that they've had for years now lying over them like a blanket.

and honestly, jug can be kind of bearable sometimes. this is one of those times.

they finish cooking and scarf down the food hurriedly as they get ready for school, the regular American dream.

-

the way that the school is literally buzzing about reggie's party feels like something out of a cheesy teen movie with a one-star rating on netflix. by third period, toni is rolling her eyes at every mention of the word "banger" or "rager or "keg". the whole party thing was fun six months ago, because it meant that toni could go and take advantage of connections to people like moose and midge, people that she was only acquainted with because they were plugs that liked her.

the word party, six months ago, meant toni getting all dressed up in preparation to go crush up pills she swiped from someone's parent's medicine cabinet and funneling them into her nostril with a rolled up dollar bill. letting the room spin around her, letting conversations blur into one big, collective voice as she laid on a couch or tucked herself away in a spare room, high out of her mind.

but now, the word party just means a bunch of sweaty bodies crammed into reggie's living room. a cabinet full of pills that she has to ignore. declining moose and midge's luring offers of "this shit has been blowing up in greendale, try it" and "it's just one pill/tab/hit".   


she kind of misses it, she thinks as she stares at herself in the girls' bathroom mirror and redoes her ponytail. she studies her features as she reminisces on the time midge brought out a bag of colorful little pills in the shape of different logos- nintendo, youtube, dominos, the wi-fi symbol, ups. toni had laughed, and midge had shouted over the loud music of the party that they were all the same dose so it didn't matter which one she picked. she debated over the red nintendo logo or a larger white skull.

it seemed so fun, so innocent as she chewed the pill and tried not to wince at the chemical taste of it, rubbed it into her gums like moose had told her to and laughed with him as he gagged at the awful taste.

 _how could something be so evil?_ she'd thought as she spent the rest of the night practically passed out on midge, feeling every emotion of every person in the room at once, sweating and getting chills over and over until her muscles ached.

she quickly decides that she, in fact, doesn't miss that. and as she walks by midge in the hallway, she spares a glance and a smile but nothing more than that.

-

 _I'm just about tired of hearing everyone talk about the "grimiest fucking banger of the year"._ Cheryl texts her near the end of the day.

toni smiles, glad that cheryl is having the exact same thoughts as her from the floor above in AP psychology.

_so i take it u aren't going ?_

_I seriously doubt it. I don't want to go if you aren't._

it's selfish, toni thinks, to keep cheryl from going out and having fun just because she can't control herself in a house full of drugs. cheryl seems to read her mind, though, saying

_I wouldn't have that much fun anyways. Even staying at home with mom doesn't sound as bad as being crammed into Reggie's basement and yelling over today's top 40._

it makes her feel a little better.

_how is ur mom ? is she still short tempered w you and all that ?_

_I have to go_

_wait wait wait talk to me_

_is everything ok ????_

_cheryl ?_

_No worries, Toni. You have your own things to worry about. Besides, if things get bad, I know that I can always drop by the trailer and come to my knight in shining armor._

_remember that always for me_

_ur not alone, cheryl_

_-_

without warning, sweet pea and fangs drop by later, just as the sun sets over the sad silhouette of the southside, citing that they need help with homework as a reason. toni quickly figures out that homework translates to poker, and helping translates to the fact that toni is extremely competitive and their game was getting very boring.

whatever. at least it helps with the fact that cheryl isn’t responding to her texts asking her to come over. she tries not to dwell on it, figuring she’s doing homework.

"oh, shit." toni laughs as fangs and sweet pea groan before she puts her hand down, a perfect full house, "read it and weep!" she says triumphantly, sweeping the pile of dollar bills that has amassed into her corner of the table.

"fuck, why are you so goddamn good at this game?" fangs mutters, throwing his hand down on top of sweet pea's mess of cards. "this is almost boring."

"you know, we could go check out reggie's rager?" sweet pea suggests, and suddenly, the idea sounds very tantalizing. with the victory that she's coming off, she feels good about staying sober. fangs wrinkles his eyebrows, no doubt recalling either last summer's overdose, or the incident at the club a few weeks ago... or all of the ugly relapses in between.

"you don't have to worry about me, fangs." she insists, inching closer to him, trying to catch his eye. it works, and she manages to put on a convincing face. "seriously, so fucking seriously, I'm not just gonna throw it away this time. besides, we'll just drop by and check it out, we don't even have to go inside."

-

she already sort of knew this was a bad idea, she realizes as she pulls up to the front lawn of the party, lights of various, bright colors spilling out of the house and the bass thrumming to the point where toni can feel it along with the rumble of her engine. 

it’s sort of a sensory overload for a second, until her eyes drift downward to focus on the front porch steps of the house. she sees reggie and archie talking, archie apparently turning down something reggie’s offering and reggie not looking too happy about it. a few rando vixens and bulldogs are hanging around as well. along with moose and midge, who are looking at toni extremely guiltily, for whatever reason. 

she sees cheryl. 

slumped down on the steps, her head resting on the supporting pole next to her, eyes rolling back in her head as a solo cup dangles from her hand. 

god, is that what she looked like when she used to get high?

and why is cheryl...

and all of a sudden, toni finds herself so hurt, betrayed, emotional that she wants to get high on every fucking drug she can find in this party. 

she barely feels fangs’ hand on her shoulder as she pops the bike’s kickstand out and stomps up to cheryl with tears in her eyes.  


End file.
